Mackie, world-renowned king of the “built like a tank” small-format mixer, is at it again. In a continued effort to make its products the best and coolest possible, Mackie has redesigned its 32-channel 3204VLZ4 mixer to live in the modern world—with some pretty hip updates.
The basics
The 3204VLZ4 features the boutique-quality Onyx mic preamps that boast an ultra-wide 60-dB gain range, extended frequency response, and distortion under 0.0007%. This is a very clean and open sounding preamp that blows away the sounds that you get from that 20-year-old Mackie mixer in your Sunday school room. There is a 100-Hz low-cut switch for each mono channel, as well as a -20-dB pad switch. There is a hi and low EQ, plus a sweepable midrange EQ that adjusts from 100 Hz to 8 kHz. There are a total of six aux sends, plus controls for pan, mute, solo, four subgroups, plus L/R assignment buttons.
Let me just stop here and mention the look and feel of the VLZ4. It's not what you expect from the older Mackie mixers. If you have not looked at Mackie's products in a while, you will be surprised. They have done a really good job of maintaining a product that is built to endure the worst— while making it look and feel like a sophisticated piece of equipment because, well, it is.
The Onyx preamps and high-end compressors raise the bar sonically on the mixer. [it] sounds fantastic.
Some fun stuff
So there is a list of features that you may not be used to seeing in a Mackie mixer. This is the cool stuff that makes this mixer a hybrid analog/digital console. This gives the mixer added features and possibilities that include recording your band and even using plug-ins (yes, plug-ins) with your mix.
There are two built-in effects processors that include settings for plate, room, halls, and even gated-type reverbs. There are chorus, tape slap, and even a tap-based delay. Now these effects can feed right into the L/R bus or you can assign them to the last two channels on the console. This is pretty cool because then you can make additional EQ treatments to them and ride the faders for your effects like you would on a larger format console. I really like being able to use the effects in this manner, so this is a major win here.
Each of the last four mono channels has a compressor. Each is set to a fixed 6:1 with a soft knee, and a simple knob adjusts the threshold at which the compressor engages. In addition to the four mono channels, each of the four stereo subgroups has compressors. This gives you a lot of options to smooth out your mix and treat individual sources or entire groups of sounds with the compressors. How do they sound? Really good.
USB appreciation
Finally, let's get into the USB connection that gives this analog console some wings. It's really quite simple the way that it works: plug in a USB cable to the back and plug it into your computer. A driver is needed for Windows-based machines, but my Macbook instantly recognized the mixer as a 4x2 audio interface. Now that your mixer is your audio interface you can press the “USB” button on the last stereo channel of the mixer and you are playing iTunes music off your computer down on that channel.
To send audio out of the mixer and into your computer you have a few options. There are a total of four channels that you can assign out of the mixer into your computer. In the “USB Out” section, lots of options here, but the most obvious is that using virtually any DAW software you can record your service, which is nice because even a free piece of software like Audacity or GarageBand will allow you to do this.
The other option is to use the USB connection as a kind of digital insert. Let's say you have a plug-in that you use on your favorite DAW and you'd like to use it on your main vocal. Simply assign that vocal to a subgroup that is then assigned to the USB output. The vocal audio can then be routed back out of your DAW and into the last stereo channel of the 3204VLZ4 with the USB switch engaged. And just like that, you are running plug-ins on alongside your Mackie mixer.
With simple digital integration Mackie has opened the door to some powerful tools on this mixer. The Onyx preamps and high-end compressors raise the bar sonically on the mixer. The mixer sounds fantastic, too, and I'd have no problem using it to mix a Sunday morning service. It would certainly give your youth room or auxiliary room a powerful upgrade without breaking the bank.
