Help choosing the right mixer

Which mixer should I buy?

  • A&H SQ-7/6/5

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Presonus StudioLive III series 64S/32S

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Something else (please name it in a comment)

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    0

Avetis KAZARIAN

New member
Mar 5, 2021
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Paris, FRANCE
I’m a bit at loss and need some experts help for choosing the right mixer.

I’m making music for myself mainly, as a deep passion, more than a weekend hobby, and I have a crazy exhausting job and the money to buy good gears.

Some health issues make me able to hear up to 22kHz, plus I’m very picky when it comes to sound quality in general (can’t stand hissing and noise).

My present (and to some extent future) studio setup is made of a variety of synths which I use mostly with stereo effects in a kind of orchestral way, and 2 mics (used separately to record family and friends playing amateur and semi pro music). I currently have a Clarett 4Pre which is quite unsatisfying and limited to say the least) and a MacBook Pro 15” 2018 (hexacore, quite satisfying).

I don’t have crazy needs in terms of inputs but as I use almost all of my ever expending collection of synths together and in stereo, I won’t mind having extra inputs at hand.

On the effect side, they’re mostly on board FX, so for now I don’t need much inserts (I suppose). But I would love to have them on the mixer (esp. compressor and EQ).

Last but not least, I would love to record directly on the mixer instead of using my computer (ideally a computer-less setup), yet I would like to have some USB/Thunderbolt I/O to record into my DAW as well, or to process some tracks on the mixer’s onboard FX when working with VSTs for example.

This may be something like a unicorn (or not) but if such a mixer exists, please let me know 🙏

My budget is around 4000/5000€ and as far as I have looked around, the two only mixers that seemed to cover my needs for that price range are A&H SQ-7 and Presonus StudioLive 64S, with their pros and cons.

If you have any feedback on those two or any other suggestions, I would love to hear them 🙏