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Band Equipment Gear Greenville Hot As A Pepper Instruments John M. Hoyt Uncategorized

Are you using protection? Hot As A Pepper is! #SoundAdvice

Mackie DL-1608 in Red Dirt Case road case
Mackie DL-1608 16 channel digital mixer in custom made Red Dirt Cases road case

Just over a year ago, Hot As A Pepper ditched our Allen & Heath mixing console and snake in favor of moving into this century and going digital AND wireless. Find the original post HERE.

In short, we opted for the Mackie DL-1608 mixer that uses an iPad for a control surface, and interfaces with iPad/s wirelessly to allow mixing from anywhere in the venue without the need for a snake creating a health and safety hazard to guests (or the console taking up a valuable seat in the venue).

This has worked out wonderfully for us!  We can save our settings once dialed in and though we don’t like to do so, we can opt to not do a sound check and know that everything is close.

But, that mixer has a LOT of potential failure points. You could drop it while moving it, or lose or break the external power supply, wifi access point or its power supply or network cable, etc. Then there are the pots on the top, 16 of them that can get bumped so the setting is not the same or they could even be damaged as they protrude from the case.

We’ve been carrying the thing around from place to place, treating it with kid gloves and praying we didn’t leave the power supply or a cable behind at a gig or at the practice studio, and then carefully readjusting each of the trim pots after we setup and before we powered it up.

I searched for an adequate road case, but there are none. Even the Mackie soft case doesn’t address most of the items on our wishlist… I found one company/guy who was making a suitable case at one point, though they are no longer doing so. However, the photos of that case were all the inspiration it took for me to find someone to build something similar for us!

That’s when I contacted Jason at Red Dirt Cases down in Texas (contact information at the bottom). I sent photos of our mixer, photos of the other case I found, measured our mixer and sent the dimensions as provided by Mackie over to him. We had several email discussions about how the mixer could be supported securely, where the power supply and the wireless access point could be mounted case, how the mixer cools and what type of case I actually wanted (carpet vs traditional, etc).

Today that case arrived, and I could not be happier. It fits like a glove… LIKE A GLOVE! I don’t think I would change a thing at all about it!

It will come out of the vehicle, be placed on top of my bass rig, the lid removed, and one single power plug connected to the AC, then mics, instruments, monitors and mains connected, and we’re done. All the settings on those pots should be where I left them.

The power supply and our wireless access point are UNDER the mixer.The mixer sits on strips of higher density foam.

If you have a Mackie DL-1608 or the DL806, then you need to get that thing protected if you take it out on the road.  Red Dirt Cases now have the dimensions and could provide you with a duplicate, or modify it to suit your needs.

Sure, there are a load of road case dealers and manufacturers out there.  I went with Red Dirt Cases after finding them in an internet search and reading reviews, however, what sold me was the eagerness of Jason to get this right for me.. The whole process was painless and he shared photos of the build as he progressed.

I’ll use them for other upcoming projects too because:

  • The build quality is outstanding.
  • The hardware is not going to fail on me like budget cases I have had.
  • The price is fair.
  • Communication was GREAT

You can find Red Dirt Cases here:

http://www.reddirtcases.com/
1-877-724-2531

If you are in the Greenville / Upstate SC area and catch our band out, I’ll be happy to show it to you in person at a gig or even at my office, just let me know.  – John

Here are some photos:

Closed view of Red Dirt Cases road case made for Mackie DL-1608 mixer
Closed view of Red Dirt Cases road case made for Mackie DL-1608 mixer
Red Dirt Cases road case made for Mackie DL-1608 mixer
Red Dirt Cases road case made for Mackie DL-1608 mixer
Rear view of Red Dirt Cases road case made for Mackie DL-1608 mixer
Rear view of Red Dirt Cases road case made for Mackie DL-1608 mixer
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Band Bar Club Fun Greenville Hot As A Pepper Live Entertainment Music

Mackie DL1608 Mixer – Follow-up review

Back in May, we posted about our new mixing console, the Mackie DL1608 digital board and after several gigs, we thought it might be a good idea to do a follow up for anyone contemplating this type of mixer..

Let’s go with the bad (or the annoying) first

The Power Supply: This thing uses an external power supply. That means, we have to worry with getting the brick’s input and output cables tangled, and we have to handle it with care. And God forbid we were to break the barrel connector or something, as there is no locally sourced part that will exactly work.

The Wireless Router: Then there is the inconvenience of using a wireless router to connect the DL1608 to our iPads for wireless control. That thing gives us two more cables to worry with, an ethernet cable and a power supply, which takes up a couple spots on a power strip.

A Solution To All Our Problems?

A possible solution might be to mount the DL1608 into a road case, and secure the power brick inside as well as the wireless router and a power strip. That would permit quicker setup, secure everything in one place so nothing can get lost (or easily damaged). We might just do this in the near future.

That’s pretty much it for the bad! Sure, we would like a few more inputs, and the ability to have some sub groups, ability to turn on/off groups of inputs for Phantom (It’s either all on or all off), additional affects, and maybe to record more than two channels at a time – but hey, what do you expect for less than a grand???

The Good

Size: It’s compact! so much better than dragging a full size console out and using the venue’s table.

No Snake Needed: We place it on the stage, and run short cables to it. No health or safety hazard of running cables where people might be walking. No rolling up that heavy snake.

Audio Quality: While the DL1608 does not have the headroom and the low noise of our old ZED, it is still very much acceptable. It’s just not as crisp, it’s more flat sounding. Accept that the preamps are not going to be the same as on your big monsters, but this isn’t a bad thing.

Intuitive Controls: Pamela runs our audio at most shows. While she is not an audio engineer, she has a good ear, and she is there for us and able to accept input from four musicians all wanting something different and the venue personnel, and turn that into a great mix. The DL1608 allows her to do that on the iPad, and it is NOT overwhelming. It doesn’t look like the cockpit of a 747.

Saving A Show: This is one of the best things! There’s not a lot in the way of knobs that can get tweaked (or damaged) during a move of this mixer. So when you show up, if the knobs for input gain have not moved, the mixer settings are exactly like you last saved them.  You can set the levels and EQ for your favorite bar or club and save them, then recall them when you play there again. This saves us 10 minutes at setup!

Six Aux Outputs: Hey, if you go with in ear monitors, you could have 6 mono outputs, or 3 stereo for your musicians. We have standard powered monitors, so we have run up to 3 different mixes. Each musician that has an iPhone or iPad can set their own mix. These also save when you save a show.

Cool factor: Trust me when I tell you that people are fascinated by this technology. They see Pamela wandering around with an iPad in hand and watch her. Also, on stage, we leave an iPad docked into the DL1608, so we can record to it, and use it for stage mix.

With Behringer’s new console, and the Presonus out there, would we get the DL1608 if we were to do this all over again? At this point in time, yes. Even though there are more inputs from the competitors, and certainly better preamps, this little unit seems like it is perfect for our four piece group.

When you see us play in the Greenville, SC area, come check it out, we’ll be glad to show you how it works.

 

Categories
Band Bar Club Event Fun Gear Greenville Hot As A Pepper John M. Hoyt Live Entertainment Music Musicians

Oh noes! Our mixing console has no knobs or sliders!

Our trusty Allen and Heath ZED22FX mixer was working so well that we decided to replace it… With this:

Mackie DL1608
Mackie DL1608 16 channel, stereo, 6 aux mixing console with iPad for control

Sometimes you just have to mix it up (pun intended) and try something new and there’s not much newer that we can afford than the Mackie DL1608.

The DL1608 is not your typical mixer. They have removed 90% of the knobs, sliders and meters, leaving you with a box that is rather small, with 16 XLR inputs, 6 1/4″ TRS, a pair of XLR outputs, and a headphone jack. The only knobs are the input trim knobs and the headphone level knob.

There are two switches. Do you need any more than that? There is one to turn it on and off and one to shoot some voltage onto the inputs for your phantom powered devices.

EVERY THING ELSE is controlled from your iPad. The entire control surface is gone from the mixer and moved to an app.

You are not locked into just one iPad though. You can keep one docked if you wish, and that iPad can control the thing, as well as record two channels of mix audio (unfortunately, you cannot record all 16 channels like you can on the Presonus or the Behringer digital mixers). Using an inexpensive wireless router, you can plug the Mackie into that, and use several other iPads / iPhones to control the thing.

Here’s our plan:

DL1608 on stage, will reside on my bass amp’s road case. All stage wiring from mics and to speakers will run to the mixer. NO SNAKE running across the floor to pose a health and safety issue to dancers.

An iPad will remain docked in the DL1608 at all times and we will record two channels to that docked iPad.  This iPad will be used to control the stage monitor mixes (remember those 6 aux outs? We can have 6 different feeds).

An 802.11n wireless router (Currently a very inexpensive Asus model) will plug into the Mackie and be velcro’d inside my road case.

My wife is our audio engineer who has been doing both front of house and monitor mixes for me for a couple years.  She will now use her own iPad to control the Mackie from anywhere around the venue she chooses!   NO CONSOLE TAKING UP A TABLE in the middle of the room. No Snake. No chance of someone spilling a beer in it.

Our guitarist and drummer probably want a different mix….   I’ll let them associate their own iPad or iPod to the Mackie and give them permission to affect ONLY their mix.

Should we add in ear monitors at some point, this system will be perfect for that too.

Shakedown cruise is coming this Friday at Rhythm & Brews in Greer, SC.  I’ll try to reply or post a new blog post with the results.  Oh, and we will be taking the old ZED with us, just in case!

John M. Hoyt – Bass guitarist on a mission