While much of the focus these days in the audio mixer market is on digital, analog is still alive and well, and certainly has its place in a house of worship. Its simplicity makes an analog console ideal for a small church venue or portable sound system for church outreach events, and eliminates the “where do I find that function” or “what option tucked deep into the depths of these menus is causing my problem” issues that can crop up with digital system.
Mackie, who made their name by creating high-quality, simple-to-use analog audio consoles, has updated their ProFX line of mixers, adding a new preamp design and new effects engine, as well as several new models.
Overview
The new Mackie ProFX16v2 is a 16-channel mixer designed for professional sound reinforcement applications. The product boasts low-noise mic preamps, a built-in effects engine with 16 effects, and compressors on four of the 16 channels.
For flexibility, the channels are configured in several different ways. Channels one through four are standard mono input channels with a three-band EQ; channels 5-8 add a simple compressor circuit to the channel; 9-12 are configured as two stereo channels—to use as stereo you use the two TRS (tip-ring-sleeve) line-level input jacks, or use them as mono with the single XLR input jack. Channels 12-16 are configured as two stereo channels with line-level TRS input jacks. This lets you accommodate a variety of input sources without needing to pull out adapters.
Phantom power is available for all XLR mic input channels, but it's an all-or-nothing switch—phantom power is on for all channels, or off for all channels.
Three aux sends are available to all channels, with aux one and two intended for monitor or external effects units, and aux send three feeding the internal effects unit.
Four subgroups are available and fed via a 1/2 and 3/4 selection switch on each channel; the pan knob for the channel controls the balance between the odd and even side of the pair. So, to send channel one to subgroup three, turn on the 3/4 subgroup button for that channel and pan hard left.
Each subgroup can be sent to the left and/or right side of the main output; there are also four subgroup output jacks where you can tap into the output signal for that group and feed devices such as a multi-track recorder.
RCA connectors are available for tape send and return.
A seven-band EQ is built into the mixer, which can be assigned to either the main mix output or monitor one output.
The effects unit has 16 presets, with a variety of reverbs, choruses and delays available. Each effect is hard-coded—there's no adjustment of effect parameters available.
And, of course, there's a headphone jack and master faders or knobs for groups, monitor and effects sends, effect returns and the main output.
Mackie has also included two-channel audio streaming over USB for connection to a DAW (digital audio workstation) system.
In Operation
I've had the pleasure of working with a variety of Mackie products since I first started mixing in church 20 years ago. I learned to mix on a Mackie 1604, and have used other Mackie products in a variety of settings. Mackie has a well-earned reputation for quality products at a reasonable price, and have always performed well, especially for products in that price range. The new ProFX16v2 did not disappoint.
The construction of the mixer felt solid. The faders had a little side-to-side play in them, but nothing that concerned me. The fader caps are rather unusual, but ergonomically fit my fingertips well and provided for good control of the channels. The knobs were rock solid. The casing is all metal, with plastic trim pieces on the left and right sides to give it a little curb appeal when used in a table-top configuration. For more mobile situations like portable churches, rack-mount rails are available.
I found that the mic inputs were sonically clean and transparent. I did not detect any noise form them at all, and did not notice any coloration. The EQ sections have a high, mid with adjustable center frequency, and low control, and were also clean and transparent, and worked well. An 80-Hz low cut button is available on all the XLR mic inputs. The preamps provided plenty of gain for my input signals. The seven-band EQ also worked well, and seemed quite clean.
The compressors are an interesting feature. The only thing that is adjustable is the threshold point; the ratio is set to about 6:1, and has a soft-knee response. I only played with them a little, but found that they seemed to operate well and didn't have noticeable “pumping” artifacts. It did seem that you needed to have a fairly strong input signal for the compressor to kick in, and there's no visual feedback as to when the compressor is reducing the signal level on a channel. A small LED that indicated gain reduction taking place would make setting the compressor more novice-friendly.
The built-in effects unit is interesting and quite useful. There are four delays available with different delay speeds, but there's no way to set a custom delay speed to match the tempo of a song. So, the delays would have limited usefulness in music, but could be interesting for sound effects for a drama.
The reverbs sound great, but the Concert Hall and Cathedral settings strongly emphasized the sibilance in vocals just a bit much for my taste. The smaller room reverbs are excellent and I'd make good use of them if I were to mix on the ProFX16v2 regularly.
The mixer allows a toggle footswitch to be connected to the effects mute function, so if you are mixing while performing, you can turn off the effects with your foot for when you just want to talk to your audience, and turn it back on when you resume playing.
The USB connection to a computer system “just worked”—no special drivers needed to be manually loaded. I connected it to my Windows 7 laptop, brought up Adobe Audition, and was able to both record from and playback to the mixer. This would enable a fast-turnaround edit and upload of the weekend's sermon very simple and feasible.
Summary
All in all, I found the ProFX16v2 to be a great little mixer, and with an MSRP of $629, it has great functionality for a very reasonable price. Any church venue that has modest audio needs should find this to be a worthy contender.
