Mackie 1604 VLZ Mixer Reviews 5

Purchased new at local music store 5 years ago for $800.00. Main use is 5 piece rock band. I run 2 1500 Mackie subs and 450's on sticks. 7 channels for drums, 2 guitars, bass, 3 vocal and a CD player/recorder. 2 monitor mixes, 3 effects processors. Outboard stuff includes gates for the drum mics & EQ's & compressors on the left & right main out & each monitor mix. This mixer is the heart of a kick ass small club PA system.

I like the versatility of this thing. I also have some festival gigs where there are different performers all day, and this unit is easily adaptable to any situation. With 4 submix's I can assign just the kick, rack toms and bass guitar to the 1500's. The inserts on every channel plus on L&R main out are great for the outboard processing. It's built like a brick house and continues to serve me well. Oh yeah, it sounds good too. The solo feature on aux 1 & 2 are real handy for setting up monitor mixes on the fly.

The only thing this mixer doesn't have that I'd like to have is inserts on the submixes.

High quality, this Mackie stuff. And affordable. I have it mounted in a standard rack case, so it's better protected against spilled beer and other falling debris. This also takes up less space when running sound from the stage, and is easier to access.

This thing is a workhorse. Perfect for almost any application. I think if I need more channels, I'll get another one. 3208!

Rick Baughman rated this unit 5 on 2003-01-25.

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