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Well, I was planning on starting a thread just like this one so I'm glad I found this first. Lots of helpful info.
I have an Mbox 2 (into iMac G5).
Does anyone have suggestions on affordable mixers to use if I'm going the route of more than 2 mics? (Affordable but not garbage. And by affordable, I guess I mean $150-$250 range. If there is nothing worthwhile in that range, I'm probably out of luck at this point.)
The two mics I have so far are a Shure SM 57 & an MXL 990. At present, I use the Mbox 2 as a preamp and for phantom power. If I get a mixer, will I then need mic preamps AND a phantom power box for the mics to go into before the mixer? And, if so, recommendations there?
I'm a newbie so all help is appreciated.
Thanks.
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Something like
this is about all you're going to get for $200. It has 4 mic preamps built into it, and 2 line inputs, making it a 6-channel mixer.
There's some terminology to learn here. First, a mic puts out a very weak electrical signal (mic level), which must be amplified by the microphone preamplifier. The mic preamp raises the signal's strength to "line-level" which corresponds to the line inputs on a mixer, recorder, etc.
Most mic pres have phantom power available. Most mixers provide phantom power for some, if not all, of the built-in mic preamps.
I'm not sure buying a mixer is the right thing to do. It makes more sense to me to save and buy an 8-input interface (Mbox 2 Pro, 002R) and an Octopre. Or, buy a hard disk recorder with 8 inputs and transfer the files digitally once recorded. Yes, it's more money, but you can multitrack.