swizzlestick wrote:
A mixer? Maybe not.
First, I am no expert in this area, but I have some practical experience. Let me throw out a few ideas for the group's consideration.
Traditional mixers have their place. And I have no intention of giving my up. But the trend in home and portable recording is away from mixers to audio interfaces with mixing and DAW software on the computer.
A mixing board needs a heavy power supply and is a bit large for portable use. It's mechanically complicated with a number of switches, rheostats, meters that drive up the price and leave it more susceptible to damage during travel. Plus most small mixing boards only deliver two output channels to the computer. If you can deliver every channel to the PC, you have more options in the DAW or software mixer. There are advantages too, but these mostly come out when you have more sophisticated needs such as more mics, MIDI devices, direct instrument inputs or aux sends.
If I was buying for portable recording with a laptop, I would go with a small, rugged USB audio interface (running on just USB power) with the right number of mic inputs.
Thanks. Great advice. I've been looking at the USB audio interfaces and I think you're exactly right. Got one ordered.
Dale