Mackie DXb Console: A Sexy Looking Console Gets Replaced
We're back at the School of Audio Engineering in Miami, and Xander Snell takes us around the studio there, introducing us to pieces of gear. He shows us one workstation that's equipped currently with a Mackie dXb console and a blend of supplemental analog equipment, but as good as the dXb board looks, it won't be there for too long.
Xander is replacing this board with Yamaha's O2R96 because it's more of a workhorse. This just goes to show that you can't just rely on good looks to get by as a piece of studio equipment.
XANDER SNELL: Well, this looks like the students are actually recording themselves for a change. It happens every once in a while. A lot of the people that come here are musicians as well as engineers, so it is not uncommon for students to start recording their own tracks here, and we encourage as much use of the equipment as possible. So, that's what it looks like they're doing here.
This DXB is a fully digital console. Well, some of our studios are fully analog, others are fully digital. The ideal combination of analog and digital is also represented here. So, for example, our SSR room has analog tape machine as well as digital recorders where you can marry up the two technologies. A lot of people consider analog to be obsolete but it's just changed its uses. It's not used as the main recorder anymore. It's used as a tool to create a different kind of sound, and that is transferred into an editing system afterwards. So, we encourage our students to learn the new applications for these things.
In this studio, everything is digital. From top to bottom, the recorder is digital, the console is digital with touch screen interfaces and all those things that modern equipment provides, the instant recall, the automation that you don't get on analog boards, so they get the best of both worlds.
So, we're replacing this room with an O2R96 mainly because that is what's actually used in the industry. The O2R is a very, very reliable solid console. It's a workhorse. It doesn't look nearly as sex as a D8B but it does the job very, very well.
One of our fundamental problems is reliability issues, not specifically with the DAB but with digital software and hardware combinations in general. We have very, very fast studio turnaround times. For us, things like being able to change a session over in a very short period of time are very important, and that's one of the reasons why we're changing.
GRETCHEN HASSE: Okay. So what happens to your old equipment?
XANDER SNELL: It depends really. It gets sold. Sometimes it gets reused in other contexts mainly.
GRETCHEN HASSE: So, you know, whatever, there's no like raffle for the students to get any of them? [LAUGHING]
XANDER SNELL: It has happened in the past but not usually with consoles. They usually don't have that kind of change, if you know what I mean.
GRETCHEN HASSE: I understand.
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