[BradLyons]

I have mixed feelings about the Spirit mixer. I really got very excited about the pre-release excitement about this mixer. I'm a long time fan of Soundcraft and Spirit analog mixers, they sound wonderful and offer an incredible value at the same time. The M-series has a very nice EQ with full-throw 100mm faders. The problem I have are the mic-pres, they are said to be the same as the Soundcraft Ghost but after careful review... I don't know how that is possible. The amount of gain I get out of them should be said as the amount of gain I DON'T get... that has been the disappointment to me. However, it's still a good alternative to the sterile sound of a Mackie... but sometimes the Mackie is still the better solution.

Now don't take this the wrong way, but I wouldn't worry about the mix-bus of ProToolsLE if you're on a Digi001. If you had an Apogee AD8000 w/8-ch D/A strapped on then I would say yeah... mix externally. But you'll get better results inside the ProTools LE environment by investing in a Control Surface and some good quality plugins such as WAVES, McDSP, Bombfactory, etc. The problem with mixing externally is using the Dig001 D/A converters. You also only have (8) outputs unless you have an ADAT Optical to D/A converter to give you (16) outputs. If you want to mix externally on a console in the ProTools world, get a MIX or HD system with multiple 888/96io/192io/xx or whatever and a true studio board. Personally, I would recommend to go the plugin route with a control surface.

If you still feel you want to mix 8-channels out to an analog mixer and you'll be using this mixer SOLELY for mixdown.... then the Spirit M12 would be just fine. Of course you're going toneed externally effects and dynamics processing and will not have automation, but that will depend on what you're mixing as well.

Hope this helps....