To be absolutely honest, this Mackie LM3204 is the kind of mixer that I have been looking for and I never knew Mackie made one. This series has since been discontinued. I was looking at the Alesis rack-mountable ones but for some reason, they did not look tough to me. They look like they would fall apart if I ever took them on the road. Mackies have a very tough reputation and that is one of the reason why I am kicking myself no for not having gotten one for myself earlier. I have seen some on sale but I do not and have never bought any mixers second-hand. One thing puzzles me is the inclusion of sliders for the main output but potentiometers for the outputs on each channel. What gives? I happen to prefer potentiometers (or pots as they are more commonly known) over sliders anyday but that is just me.

I sincerely hope that Mackie does indeed make ones like these again.

There are mixers, and then there are Mackie mixers. I have used them many times throughout the years that I have been involved in professional audio and I can say, they bloody rock! Besides being very road-worthy, they produce very clean sound and are built like tanks. this one is no exception. It can be used very well as a small mixer in a home studio. This mixer uses potentiometers instead of sliders which means that they will last a long time than linear faders because pots are sealed. The first two channels are mono channels, featuring some very clean and quiet preamps in the XLR chain. The third channel is a stereo channel, as are the 3th and 5th. So, in essence, two mono channels and 3 stereo channels give us a total of 8 channels.

Each channel gives us HI, MID and LOW shelving equalizers, which means that we have better control on the EQ-ing. There is also an Aux send, level, pan and PFL solo on each channel, giving you greater flexibility. This mixer has so much crammed into one small package that I think that if you are on the lookout for a _very_ functionable small-format mixer, this Mackie might be just up your alley.

You can read more about this fine mixer here: http://www.mackie.com/products/802vlz3/

I had the chance to use this mixer a few days back at a friend’s wedding. I was in charge of sound and music…of sorts. In any case, I stationed myself close to this mixer and hooked up my laptop to channel 5/6. I must say that this mixer sounds pretty good. Its rather compact and has a whole lo of effects to chose from, making it a great mixer to use in a small pub.

Mackie has a very interesting name for their effects back, calling it EMAC. According to Mackie:

EMAC stands for Extended Multiplication and Accumulation. In non-geek terms, that means no loss of internal precision during audio processing. We started with the best proprietary reverb, delay and modulation algorithms our engineers could devise, then added 32-bit internal processing for a difference you’ll definitely hear.

Pretty interesting! There is also a Vocal Eliminator, for karaoke when you want to remove the vocals. According to Mackie, it does a pretty good job! I did not get the chance to try it though.

The sound was consistently great, as with most Mackie mixers. There is a five-band equalizer, which would suit small pubs just fine as the main mixer in say, a band for instance. There are two AUX send and returns. AUX 1 is for monitoring/foldback and AUX 2 is for the effects. I was using AUX 1 for a small Yamaha MSR100 monitor which also performed flawlessly. Channel one and two was utilised by wireless microphones that a pastor was using to register their marriage, and also to give a pretty candid speech. There is a phantom power switch to activate the phantom power but as I had no condenser mikes or active DIs to run, I did not need to use it.

So would I recommend this? Definitely. Small pubs and clubs with maybe two-piece bands would benefit from a mixer like this that just does the job. I know I liked it but for me, I would prefer a mixer with pots.

I was using this mixer the other day when I was providing a temporary rented system in a new club that is about to come up. The rented system was supposed to test the acoustics of the place and I must say that the the mixer provided some punchy audio when hooked up to a high and low amplifier. Mackie claims that their  XDR2 (Extended Dynamic Range) mic preamps offer incredibly low noise, with individual mic pre THD below 0.0007%, and overall mixer THD less than 0.0025%. With 60dB of available gain per channel. Besides, each mic channel has 75Hz Low-Cut filters, two Aux Sends, inserts, phantom power, constant-loudness Pan controls and Pre Fader Solo. There is also a Control Room/Phones source matrix, Master Aux section with EFX to Monitor, tape outputs, a headphone amplifier and balanced XLR and TRS outputs.

The beautiful thing about this mixer is that it can be rack-mounted in a 19″ rack and comes with the necessary rack-ears. This is one mixer I do not mind getting, providing I can find a dealer in Singapore.

A few days back, I was walking through a shopping centre and I came across a road-show. I heard the emcee talking on the microphone and the sound sounded well, pretty punchy and good. So I went up to have a look at the sound system they were using. I managed to see the usual flight-case filled with equalizers and amplifiers. then I saw the speakers, which were mounted on stands. These were the speakers they were using…the Mackie c300z
I did some research on them and apparently, these speakers have some pretty good reviews. First and foremost, they are passive which means that you need a separate amplifier to power them. This is good because it does not come with the usual Class D amplifier module that “plague” powered speakers these days. It comes with a 12″ woofer and a tweeter hooked up to a horn. It seems that quite a lot of these manufacturers nowadays fix tweeters instead of compression drivers to their speakers and Mackie is no different. In any case, I was able to get the specs and they are right here:

The new C300z passive loudspeaker represents Mackie’s first lightweight passive speaker tuned exclusively by the EAW loudspeaker engineering team. This is the same team with more than 25 years of high-output loudspeaker expertise, having created loudspeaker systems for critical applications as diverse as the Super Bowl, Iron Maiden, and the Pope. And although loudspeakers for these mega-systems cost exponentially more than the stalwart C300z, many of the same concepts applied, namely: designing custom 12″ LF drivers with a frequency range from 50 Hz – 3000 Hz and a 3″ voice coil that can take a pounding. And a 1.75″ High-Frequency titanium Driver and Horn providing a wide, controlled dispersion pattern and precise reproduction of the critical 1000 Hz – 20,000 Hz upper mid-range and high frequencies.

Honestly? They did not sound too bad but then again, I was hearing only speech through them, not music. I suppose they would need to have a separate subwoofer if you are going to use it to run a mobile disco. They cost about $1400 per pair here in Singapore. We can get cheaper speaker systems for the money admittedly but for speakers in plastic enclosures like these, they are pretty hard to beat. I must admit…I was impressed.

It is fairly easy to get started in the sound reinforcement business. You can start off by having a small system and offer services to event companies, tradeshows and the like. A small system does not have to be expensive. Take a look at the picture above. All it consists of are two Peavey dual 15″ speakers, a small Mackie mixer, a QSC power amplifier and what looks like an effects unit. Rack it up in a standard road rack and there you go. What would be ideal here in this picture, and would be required in some case would be a CD player and a graphic equalizer. But all this stuff is not super expensive and will perform well. I should know about this because I started off this way and I am still doing it, on a much smaller scale.

I came across an event company, or rather, a sound rental company using these Mackie active subwoofers in a shopping centre in Singapore a couple of nights back. The sound system had already been stripped down and they were obviously waiting for the van or truck to come by so that they could load their speakers in it and go back. Interesting looking speakers…that is what I thought when I saw these. This is what these subwoofers have to offer, according to their website:

• 500-Watt single 15” compact Active subwoofer system
• Precision 15″ woofer with high temperature voice coil
• 500-Watt continuous power FR Series high-current amplifier
• Extremely powerful system capable of real, professional output levels
• Onboard Active electronics provide equalization and high-pass filter for full-range loudpseakers.
• 128dB Peak Output
• Frequency Response 36 Hz–120 Hz
• 13-ply Baltic Birch enclosure finished in black splatter paint
• Cast aluminum side handles

• Pole mount receptacle

• Signal present and limit LEDs

Looks pretty average. There are better subwoofers out there in the market for a cheaper price too. I think I will pass on these.

The wife and I were at Plaza Singapura last week and there was this roadshow happening in the main foyer. I saw four of these Mackie C200 speakers surrounding the foyer and I thought that I would do some research on them. In my opinion, they sounded average but then again, all they were used for was for sound-reinforcement, for two emcees who could not even speak properly. No music was played so I cannot vouch for them music-wise. Specifications-wise, this loudspeaker is endowed with a high-precision 1.4″ HF titanium compression driver and 10″ LF transducer. That is about the same as my Stagepas 500 speakers. It is also able to handle 200 watts (RMS) and 500W peak power at 8 ohms. The connections behind it? Speakon®-style 1/4-inch TS phone jack. They cost about a $1000 a pair here in Singapore. Pretty pricey for a pair of speakers with 10″ woofers. Honestly? I will give them a pass.

I saw this guy selling this mixer second-hand on a forum for audio and I thought…why not. I am looking for a mixer and I like rotary-potentiometer meters because they do last longer and so this was a likely choice. The price being offered was pretty good too. I thought that I should get myself a serious mixer if I am going to get bigger, powered speakers and bigger, powered speakers are on my list of things to get. Specifications-wise:

• New ultra-low noise VLZ3 design with highest possible headroom
• 4 studio-grade XDR2™ Extended Dynamic Range mic preamps
• 12 high-headroom line inputs
• Advanced DC pulse transformer RF rejection
• 2 Aux sends, level, pan and PFL solo on each channel
• 2 stereo Aux returns + EFX to Monitor
• 3-Band Active EQ (80Hz, 2.5kHz, 12kHz)
• 18dB/oct. 75Hz Lo-Cut filter on Mic input channels
• ALT 3/4 stereo bus for added versatility
• Control Room/Phones source matrix
• Rack-mountable design using optional rack ears
• Sealed rotary controls to resist dust and grime
• New Multi-Voltage power supply for worldwide use
• Rugged steel chassis

Not too bad at all considering. Only thing I do not like is the fact that it uses 1/4″ TRS-balanced phone jacks for the main output. I would have preferred XLRs but then again, beggars cannot be choosers!

I have seen these speakers used a lot in many a shopping centre, especially for road shows. These Mackie Thumps were originally made by a company named Tapco, a company that Mackie evolved from. However, in the many audio forums out there, many do not like these speakers, saying that they “run out of gas” pretty quickly. But these powered speakers come with a very nice price-point and many people who cannot afford the more expensive powered speakers will get these. From the Mackie website, here are the specs:

• 400W of ultra-efficient Fast Recovery™ amplification (LF 300 watts peak Class-D Power, HF 100 watts peak Class A/B)
• High-output transducers (15″ woofer and 1″ compression driver)
• User-adjustable 3-band contour EQ with sweepable mid-frequency
• Mic/Line input for direct connection of single microphone
• Tough, impact-resistant polypropylene enclosure
• Pole-mountable and floor wedge-able
• Extremely lightweight and portable (36 lbs)

So as can be seen, they do not use Class-D for the highs and the lows, preferring to use it for the lows and it does not have much power, from what I can see, for a 15″ speaker. But I was pleasantly surprised to find out that when the music was played at a low volume, they sounded pretty good. They had nice lows and the sound was pretty crisp. I suppose what those people in the audio forums did not like about these speakers and that is they are not powerful enough. They are right. The specifications of the speaker shows this fact. But if you are just getting started in audio rentals, this will do fine for a low-powered setup, although I would get something that can handle more power for dinner and dances.

I came across this speaker fairly recently. I was always wondering about the other speakers from Mackie besides the polypropylene-encased ones. This one is made of birch wood, which literally translated, means one heavy bugger. But the good thing about wooden cabinets is the sound. It just sounds better! But knowing the dealers in Singapore, this is gonna be one frightfully expensive speaker to purchase. Let us see what we can garner from the specifications:

• Precision Passive loudspeaker with transducer and crossover design by esteemed EAW engineering team
• Wide-dispersion, ultra-low distortion, high frequency horn
• Professional 18mm Baltic birch wood construction with pressure-injected structural resin
• 350 watts long-term power handling; 1400 watts peak
• 1.75″ (44mm) titanium dome compression driver with optimized symmetric phase plug
• 15″ (380mm) LF driver with nearly indestructible high-temperature voice coil
• Input Type: Neutrik Speakon™ and female 1/4-in. TS jack
• Maximum SPL Long-term @ 1m: 127dB
• Crossover Frequency: 1300Hz
• Input Impedance: 8 ohms

Most of this is taken from the Mackie website so some of it is usual marketing hyperbole. Like the one about the woofer with the “nearly indestructible high-temperature voice coil”. Looks like they got the folks at EAW to design it for them. But the again, Mackie is owned by Loud Technologies, a big conglomerate who also own Eastern Acoustic Works or EAW for short.

There are also a provision for two types of audio jacks at the rear of the unit. One of them is a Neutrik Speakon and the other is a 1/4″ tip-sleeve (TS) jack. According to Mackie:

Few things are as frustrating as having the wrong cable for hooking up. Connecting and setting up the S215 is a breeze. It accepts a speaker-level signal via either a Neutrik Speakon® connector or female 1/4-inch TS (Tip/Sleeve) connector, so now you don’t have to remember to bring the right adaptors.

Yeah, right. This really made me chuckle. But I digress.

The weight of these speakers are a whopping 30 kilograms. Egads. You can literally break your back carrying these. But in all honestly, the Yamaha Club Series will trump these…effortlessly and for less money…as far as Singapore is concerned. They look pretty tempting to me but in an economy that does not look too good, people are going for bang for buck. Well, lets look for offers then!

A few days back, at an event I was attending, the subwoofer in the premises decided to go titsup. So we called people like crazy trying to get a subwoofer rented for the night to replace the dead one. In the end, a kind soul from KSP AVL Pte Ltd named Shiva brought one down to the premises and duly hooked it up to the “dead” subwoofer in the premises, that was by now having intermittent signs of life. This sub immediately did its duty and before long, all was ok. I was not satisfied with the sound though. The Turbosound Milan M15s sounded like junk after but what people wanted was heavy bass and this sub was able to deliver. From Mackie’s website, these are the features:

• High 127dB SPL
• 600 watts RMS of FR Series™ high current amplification
• 15“cast frame RCF LF transducer with 3“inside/outside-wound, high-temperature voice coil & High Flux magnetic circuit (whatever that means)
• Built-in electronic stereo/mono high pass crossover network
• Can be used with active or passive speaker systems

Apparently, these subs have been replaced by a newer model, the SWA1501 and can no longer be found on the market. But I can tell you, I was impressed.

I had the chance to use this a few days back at an event. Now, one major peeve I have about this mixing console is that each channel does not have a L/R button to send it to the stereo bus. No. There is only an ASSIGN switch on each channel to assign that channel to a subgroup first. Only on the subgroup, there is an assign button to the stereo bus. Bloody irritating. I now know why a lot of times, this mixer comes up for sale in second-hand equipment forums. I did not get the chance to try the effects so I cannot comment on that. I mean, I like Mackie but this CFX12 mixer, I would give a wide berth. It just does not have the flexibility I crave for.

Just the other day, I came across a pair of these Mackie SA1521 speakers in the foyer of a shopping mall. Thes speakers had very relaxing music played through them and I must say that it sounded good. It was the usual setup of a pair of speakers in tripods and a flightcase holding a mixer and CD players. I did some research and from what I know, these speakers have been discontinued. A shame really because it seems these were made of baltic birch and have a 133dB SPL output. Not too shabby actually. They also boast 500 Watts of continuous RMS amplifier power (400W LF, 100W HF) so its not too bad although you can get powered speakers providing twice that. More often than not, its not so much the wattage but rather about the clarity and SPL, which tells how efficient a speaker is. Nice speakers. Shame they got discontinued. If you want to read more, more can be found in the Mackie website here.

I was walking with my wife at Plaza Singapura a couple of days back and I came across an event being held there. The event company supplied four of these speakers, the Mackie SRM550s. Now, I know about the SRM series from Mackie. The SRM-450s were very popular and I still see some companies using them for shows. These are the new line from them…well, not really new, but you get my drift.

In any case, rhe SRM550 is paired with custom transducers within internally- braced all-wood cabinets. That is pretty good because the 450’s of old used polypropylene cabinets. The SRM550 features what Mackie dubs “High Definition Audio Processing™”, including acoustic correction DSP (Digital Signal Processing) for high-definition sound, plus system optimization tools like application-specific speaker modes. You can see it in the picture above. You can choose from PA, DJ, MONITOR or SOLO. Like the Yamaha DXR Series, it has a built-in mixer so you can use it as such for small roadshows without bringing a separate mixer. Check out the RCA inputs! It also has a feedback destroyer…of sorts. But let me ask you. What good is a feedback destroyer if you want to mount these speakers for say, permanent installs? But there you go.

Features-wise, this is a summary of what it has to offer:

• 2-way, 1,600W powered speaker in an all-wood cabinet
• 12″ LF woofer, 1.4″ HF compression titanium driver
• Built-in DSP for feedback suppression, speaker voicing, alignment delay, and more
• 4 voicings for quick setup: PA, DJ, Monitor, and Soloist
• Built-in 2-channel mixer
• XLR/TRS combo inputs and RCA inputs let you connect microphones and instruments directly for solo use
• Smart Protect DSP protects your speakers from harm
• 60-degree angle when on its side for monitor use

Mackie products are pretty expensive in Singapore that is why the many people gravitate more towards Yamaha. Speaking of Yamahas, I saw that the people who supplied this system used Yamaha MSR400’s for foldback monitors. I wonder why they did not make it an all-Mackie gig. In any case, as I was saying, I would take the Yamaha DXRs over these. That is because I heard these this afternoon and while they were very good, I find the Yamahas to be much better.

About a week ago, I was using this mixer at an event. I must say that it was a pretty good sounding mixer but the mixer had some issues with the faders and input gains. I suppose it had something to do with the age of this mixer. But I was pleasantly surprised at how hood it sounded. The even lasted nine hours and by the end of it, I must have discovered about six channels giving issues on this mixer. All this mixer needs is an overhaul and it should be sounding great again

A few days back, I was with some friends at a block party in Haji Lane. Haji Lane is a quaint little place in Singapore with all kinds of shops and bars and this place was one of them. I had written an article about the Mackie Thumps before and I did not think that they were great speakers to get but for the money you pay for them, I suppose you get what you pay for, But these Thumps, in that Haji Lane area, were LOUD. But then again, it was an all-vinyl party so it was not the clearest of audio but still, it was loud and clear. I suppose for small block parties ike these, these will have to suffice…and suffice they did!

Just last night, one of my colleagues told me that the Mackie mixer belonging to a client of mine has issues so it must be sent for repair. Unfortunately, the client needs the mixer for an event today. So we search our store and the only mixer that we have available is a Behringer Xenyx 802. But unfortunately, the Mackie mixer has XLR balanced outputs and the Behringer only has unbalanced 1/4″ outputs. So how do we solve this?

Simple. I asked my colleague if they had any DI boxes in the store. She said that we have a single DI box. So what I do is to make a XLR Y-cable and a couple of 1/4″ to 1/4″ TS phone jacks. I had some spare plugs and XLRs left over so they would do nicely. The way it is going to be connected is:

1. 1/4″ to 1/4″ TS phone plug cable will be plugged to the unbalanced output of the Behringer mixer
2. The other end of the 1/4″ to 1/4″ TS phone plug cable will be plugged to the input of the DI box
3. The output of the DI box will be connected to the XLR Y-cable
4. The two outputs of the Y-cable will be plugged into the existing XLR cables

This is the only way this is going to work. Meanwhile, I have to make sure we have a proper mixer with a balanced output. Unbalanced outputs like the one that Behringer has is not gonna cut it these days

Just last week I was at a venue to visit a friend who was conducting an event there. During the course of the event I had to help my friend with connections to the house mixer. And this is the house mixer. It is a Mackie mixer but you can tell from the pic that it has not been taken care of very well. Some might argue that it is just tape on the faders but to be honest, it looks like they bought this mixer and then realised that they needed stereo channels. That is what the “ganged” faders are for…to send two mono channels as a stereo mix

The mixer was also dusty to boot. One thing about dust and electronic devices is that they seldom work together well. Also, some of the gain controls were pretty sketchy and there was a lot of issue setting the gains. Looks like the next time, if I do an event in this place, I would be better off getting my own mixer and bringing it down

I am seriously thinking of getting this mixer to replace my old Yamaha MG82cx. There is nothing wrong with my Yamaha mixer but I feel that this Mackie 802VLZ4 has got more options when it comes to the number of balanced inputs that I require for some shows. I realised that when I did a show fairly recently and I found that the sound was lacking and also the lack of balanced inputs were causing me issues. This Mackie 802VLZ4 has got more options and I think that it will serve me better. I did a post some time back on the previous generation of this mixer and the specs are pretty much the same. This mixer is gonna cost me about $300 but I think it will be worth it