Budget mixer

[RadioRandy]

Hello, and thank you for approving my admission into this group.

I used to be in radio years ago, but have never started my own station. A friend who runs an Internet station says I need to get a board with the program, audition, & cue capability. I have a limited budget. What budget priced board would have at least the ability to listen to a cue channel while streaming back out over one of the services. I also wonder if I need something like a microphone processor to go with a board and PC setup. Hearing different things. I hope to use my laptop, and mic, & a budget board of some sort to do live programming at will, while automating most of the day. Thanks in advance guys and gals.

 

[Support]

Hi RadioRandy,

Welcome to the forums.

Using an outboard mixer is not essential depending on what live stream encoding software that you would be using. If for example you are using DJ software, then this has this function built into the software. If your soundcard has the ability to channel monitor you can then use this to cue your channels.

All budget DJ mixers have the ability to monitor / cue a channel and a mic input. You might wish to look into the Behringer range.

Again a mic processor is not really essential, but it would definitely make your show sound more professional with the use of dynamic processing and a noise gate etc.

 

[General Lighting]

The Behringer DX2000 mixer is aimed at dance DJ's but also has a good feature set for online broadcasting (it can also be modded to provide such features as auto mute speakers when mics are up and activate red light signals yto avoid howling your programme feed). They also sell the cheaper compressors/expanders which are what you would want for the microphone processor (the ones with noise gate are useful for removing the worst of outside noise such as ventilator fans of PCs etc, I use one channel of a MDX2600 for processsing the microphone audio).As a European I tend to look at their kit first; although there are American brands with similar features - I think you can get Behringer kit in the USA but don't know if its any more expensive.

Be aware that laptops often have noisy power supplies and this noise as well as that from other kit can find its way into your audio equipment unless you pay careful attention to whats called a "pin 1 problem" (where signal earth and protective earth get combined at the wrong places) - you may have to use trafos (audio transformers) to get rid of ground loops especially if you are connecting balanced and unbalanced audio equipment.

Unfortunately you will only discover where the noise is once you have set up your studio. Its worth therefore knowing how to use a soldering iron and how to build your own connector leads. you can get the transformers from Mouser for a few dollars (I just checked) but will have to make up their enclosures and connectors yourself (maybe there are ready made ones but I don't know which US companies sell finished kit as well as European suppliers). Don't remove protective earth (earth ground) from equipment to remove this noise even if you are in a 120V country - that can get you electrocuted!

 

[CharmingNathan]

Hello there,

It's ironic seeing this post, as I am in almost exactly the same position.

At the moment, I am a "bedroom D.J." (although technically the setup is in my lounge!), using a very old Dell Server as my main server for Mail, Web, etc., with a Laptop running ZaraRadio.

However, looking to expand by upgrading to either S.A.M. or RadioDJ, and included within that upgrade is a mixer. At present just using a Canford Audio MX622 microphone mixer, which just about does the job - just, but looking for something more professional and suited to the task.

I have no electrical/electronic/wiring skills at all, although I have installed my own B.T. phone sockets myself (he said proudly!), and only very, very basic soldering skills - haven't done any for about three years.

What would be a good, budget (preferably less than £500GBP) sound mixer for my situation?

Oh, and if it's not already obvious, I am based in the U.K.!

In advance, thanks for your help.

 

[General Lighting]

the Behringer DX2000 would be about right for that price range. Unfortunately unless you get lucky and find a proper broadcast desk being sold cheaply (and for < £500 it is almost certain to need some work) you won't have the mic live muting but a friend who uses the DX2000 says the auto talk over works well in preventing howling.

 

[CharmingNathan]

Okay, thanks for that General Lighting...it's decision time.

After asking people who know more than I about this business (and that's not hard!), it seems I have a choice between the Behringer DX2000 and this Allen & Heath Mixer: http://www.allen-heath.com/ahproducts/xb14/

I'm concerned that the Allen & Heath mixer is a bit O.T.T. and is comparable to buying a Rolls Royce for driving around my local town centre, on the other hand, I've read several poor reviews of the Behringer DX2000 in terms of its reliability and performance, but is a lot cheaper - the Allen & Heath Mixer is almost £800G.B.P.

I'm not a big setup, just a small scale Internet and mobile based station, but am also told that I need two P.C.'s for input/output, whereas I thought I could get away with a single P.C. with two sound cards in, but in different channels on the mixer? So 2xCD Players, 1xMicrophone, 2xDecks (not purchased yet), 2xP.C.'s equals at least seven channels.

Your thoughts?

 

[General Lighting]

a few friends of mine who work as professional sound engineers (more in production and events but they know their stuff) were discussing Allen and Heath kit; well specified but can also go wrong after prolonged use (one dude even referred to it as "Allen and Grief!". The harsh facts are that quality control of even pro quality electronics isn't always 100%; a lot of the price premium on the top end gear was basically paying for the support staff to fix up the defects!)

Behringers reputation is often dragged down by some distributors in other countries who weren't geared up towards fully supporting the brand (bear in mind English speakers are more easily influenced by reviews in countries other than UK where English is widely used) and particularly for designs which have been around for some years (I think the DX2000 has), issues with reliability of all electronics in the 1990s and early 2000s.

This is because 3 Taiwanese lads set up a startup company making cheap elcos (capacitors) using a flawed design stolen from their previous employers. These bad components (that went defective after only a few years) found their way into all manner of equipment; computers, telecoms and networking equipment, not just audio kit.

Also Behringer equipment is more likely to be used in harsh environments like clubs, warehouse raves etc than brands which end up in "proper" broadcast studios. I buy all sorts of electronic kit for work (in some cases it can be safety critical!) and unfortunately have noticed a decline in reliability including out of the box / nearly new equipment failures. The only way to deal with this is to select a supplier which has good customer service and doesn't quibble about returns / honouring guarantees; as well as testing everything before you put it into production.

With regard to PCs; whilst you can get away with one and two soundcards its better to dedicate one for playout and the other for streaming and/or recording live output (this can be combined). PCs are cheap nowadays. Misco does some good deals on refurb ones; often small form factor so they don't take up excessive space. They can be better than brand new ones as you get Win 7 Pro and are not forced to use Win8 which still isn't ready for business use. USB sound cards are often better as you can reuse them if you upgrade or redeploy a PC and they aren't as prone to interference on the audio.

 

[CharmingNathan]

Thanks a lot for the reply General Lighting - if you were me, in my situation with my setup, which mixer would you go for? Also, which playout system, I am experimenting with S.A.M., RadioDJ, and RadioBOSS? Interesting comments regarding Allen & Heath and Behringer - I will check what level of support Allen & Heath offer, and their returns policy.

Please bear in mind, I have nil electronic/electrical skills, and borderline basic soldering skills.

I spoke to Allen & Heath and they said with their mixer, everything is in 'modules', and that everything including the P.C.'s just plugged in and worked - where have I heard that before?!

With regards to the P.C., my intention is to have one system for playout and to double for record library, and recording where necessary. I have been told that one cannot use the same P.C. for input and output (i.e. record and playback) even with two sound cards, because they are installed on the same Motherboard, they conflict each other out. I've yet to try this, but I'm not sure that's right...?!

 

[General Lighting]

TBH I would go for the DX2000 as it can also be used as a DJ mixer for electronic dance music which is the genre I prefer; although the XB-14 is well specified it is a big price premium (even over similar Allen and Heath models) for just the two telephone hybrid channels and the mic live on air light.

If you are able to team up with someone who has a bit more electronics knowledge (perhaps an older. retired former broadcast engineer) it would still be worth searching out a proper radio station desk (don't forget such equipment can be very big and bulky!)

You can get away sometimes with using the onboard soundcard of a PC and a USB external one - but the PC must be powerful enough. Two physical soundcards in a PC can be a recipe for trouble. In all cases its often worth getting the anti-ground loop transformers (they can be as cheap as £5-10) to remove noise from the PC power supply.

 

[CharmingNathan]

Interesting choice! I shall look into these mixers more deeply, although Canford Audio in the U.K. have suggested a cut-down version of the XB14 - they pointed out that it is a lot of money to pay for what you stated about the telephone channels and "On-Air" light, especially when I don't have one, and that as for push button start, I could just as easily click the button on the mouse!

They also threw in an interesting choice into the mix (no pun intended!), a sort of midway option between the Behringer, a Mackie 1402VLZ4:
http://www.canford.co.uk/Products/9...-mic-line-4x-stereo-in-monitor-L-R-2x-aux-out the price is better, and it has six rather than seven channels, but I'm sure I could work around that.

As far as the sound in/out goes, my intention is to use two Soundblaster SZ2 soundcards in the same P.C. It's not ideal I know, BUT it's better than using two separate P.C.'s which I am keen to avoid, due to lack of space. Though I do take on board what you say about that being a recipe for trouble; as previously stated, I have been told that they can, in effect, conflict each other out due to being on the same Motherboard?

 

[General Lighting]

although the Mackie is techniclaly a small production mixer they are increasingly finding their way into online and small community stations due to the cost difference and declining budgets; I've used a Behringer model with similar features before and found it satisfactory.

With the two soundcards you need to ensure they are not "fighting" for IRQs and memory map addresses (DMA etc); so might need to tweak the hardware configurations in windows device manager. been a long time since I had to do that; it was a complicated task back then and I doubt its any less so now. Small form factor PCs are (as their name suggests) not as bulky as full size towers (but you may find they only have half height PCI slots that an external sound card would not fit into).

 

[CharmingNathan]

Canford Audio did actually point out that, as you say General Lighting, the Mackie mixer is not a broadcast mixer, but they suggested it could be an ideal midway solution, where the XB14 is a bit O.T.T. and overpriced. They also said no configuration was needed: basically plug in your X.L.R. leads into the mixer, the jack at the P.C./C.D. end and away you go. Given the option of the Mackie mixer, would you still opt for the Behringer DX2000?

I think that is what was meant by the two soundcards 'fighting' each other, and I know how difficult it is dealing with I.R.Q.'s etc., I am just trying to steer away from involving too many computers. Otherwise I am looking at having four: 1-'transmitter'(server), 1 x playout system (not connected to the mixer, 1 x P.C. playout system (connected to mixer), and one to record the output. The idea is to power them all off, minus the server (transmitter) when not live to save money, not to mention power.

 

[General Lighting]

With my current setup (as I already have a standalone DJ controller) I'd go for the Mackie (its easy enough to add a reversible modification to all these small mixers to do the speaker muting (at least for a presenters mic) by concealing a rare earth magnet in the fader knob for the mic, putting a reed switch below it and using this, an Arduino and a very basic circuit to switch a relay - I had this setup in operation before I was lucky enough to get a second hand broadcast console at a reasonable price. You don't of course need to build such modules to start with but as your experience and electronic skills improve you might decide you want to; for me that was a return to "proper electronics" after many years away from it and I and I was impressed with what could be achieved especially as you can do stuff in software that would take many more components in hardware..

A playout system that can be switched to full auto mode from live assist would reduce the numbers of PC's required; also provided you have clean power (use a UPS and/or surge protectors) as required its less stressful on equipment to leave it powered on than to keep switching it on and off again.

Equipment like mixers do not use a lot of power; you could then just leave the automation running through the mixer rather than bypassing it at the end of live broadcasting ; and even if you still wanted to do that you could do it with one less PC (unless there was another reason to have 2 playout PCs). You would need an audio switching box anyway or the PC doing the streaming would still be connected to programme output from the mixer rather than your automation!

 

[CharmingNathan]

Hi General Lighting,

I was seriously considering purchasing the Mackie, when I was advised:
"That mixer looks good but has no usb on it and only 4 stereo line inputs and you said you needed 5 inputs 2/cd's 2/turntables /1 pc plus you wont be able to run the turntables in to the line inputs, you would need to have preamps for them before the inputs. If you did that you would be 1 input short for the pc."
"