Seeking advice on home studio upgrade

[dogsaplenty]

The mixer and i/o in my home studio are both long overdue for an upgrade, due to age and noise. The mixer is a 16x8x2 Studiomaster, and the i/o is a Digi002.

I'm currently running PT(10.0.0) on an iMac (2.7Ghz Core i5, 20GB 1333 DDR3 RAM) with OS10.7.5.

The 8 sub-outs on the board are actually overkill. In all our sessions, we've never used more than 4 (drums are supplied via Roland V-kit MIDI, triggering Superior Drummer inside PT). However, there are 4 pre-fader AUX outputs that I use for headphone monitors. This part does get used, so I'll need to keep that feature.

I've been kicking around the idea of a digital mixer, but the ones I've researched so far (Mackie, Presonus) have a lot of fx, flying faders, preset recall, etc that are mainly used for live mixing. I'll never do that, this is strictly a recording studio, so I don't want to waste $ on stuff I won't use. I'm sure they're fine mixers, but again, it seems like a waste of $, although having the i/o directly on the mixer itself does seem very enticing!

So, I'm here now figuring that it'll be a new analog mixer (16x4x2) and new i/o.
So many choices. If anyone is rocking a similar home studio, I'd very much like to get your thoughts here. Is my thinking correct with the digital mixer? My budget is somewhere between $1,500-$2,000. Thanks for anything here!

[VRW]

Hi, don´t you think the Presonus StudioLive 16.4.2 AI would definitely meet all your requirements?
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SLM164AI
http://www.presonus.com/products/StudioLive-AI-Series

16 mic pres/inputs
enough AUXs
4 subs
Firewire 800 (fitting your model of Mac) audio interface
digital mixer
$1599.95 (exactly your price range)

The only thing would be that you better should upgrade your OSX to Mountain Lion 10.8.5 because
the latest Presonus driver for it starts with Mountain Lion and they even provide a driver compatible
with OSX El Capitan already.
http://www.presonus.com/products/Stu...ries/downloads

Btw OSX Mountain Lion 10.8.5 seems to be the almost best and most stable version of OSX yet, so
this would be no "downgrade" for you actually.

Pro Tools 10.3.9 and OSX 10.8.5 are a perfect fit.

There you can get OSX Mountain Lion if you would be interested.
http://www.apple.com/shop/product/D6...-mountain-lion


You see, it´s not that easy to find an analog 16 channel desk with 4 pre-fader Auxs (there are a lot
options with 3 or 2 pre/2post etc.) and 4 sub outs for a reasonable price without lots of bells and whistles.

For a good friend me once installed a small home recording set up with a 2010 iMac, Pro Tools, an 003R
and a Mackie VLZ3 1642 which did a pretty good job.
Therefor I had recommended one of those Mackies but they only offer 2pre/2post Auxs. Anyway they offer
a lot useful stuff and decent audio quality, so you may check them out as well.
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/1642VLZ4
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/1604VLZ4
http://mackie.com/products/vlz4-series

Another one may be this Allen and Heat mixer which offers 6 Auxs (2pre/2switched/2post) which may work
for you. Unfortunately it does have only 2 sub-outs yet direct channel outs which you may use to go to your
audio interfaces´ inputs.
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/MixWizard416
http://www.allen-heath.com/ahproducts/wz4-16-2/

If you combine this analog mixers with one those affordable Focusrite interfaces (Saffire or Scarlett series),
you will receive a very decent quality home recording set up.

If you have got a Thunderbolt port on your iMac, the Focusrite Clarett 8pre and the Clarett 8pre X might be
a very nice options too. Those are great interfaces for the price!

As far as I understand it even the Allen&Heath
mixer itself can be easily equipped with a USB multirecording interface card optionally.
http://www.allen-heath.com/ahproducts/usb-audio-option/

It´s not that expensive actually.
http://www.amazon.com/Allen-Heath-WZ.../dp/B00KZHT0KY

OSX versions Snow Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks and Yosemite will be supported.
http://www.allen-heath.com/ahproducts/usb-audio-option/
(go to the -Software- menu to see the options)

There may be a lot more options out there of course. These are just a few suggestions.


Wishing you the best of success and happy holidays!