Will a mixer help my music??

[ims3k]

Hey,
First off I am new to this forum, and have actually never posted in a forum.
I, like most people, have a small bedroom studio, consisting of A ProTools LE 002 Rack, Reason (which I use for drum and bass), a couple of mics, 2 keyboards, a guitar, and a million plug-ins.
Although I have a pretty good understanding of recording and mixing, I have recently been trying to figure out how to bring my music “up a notch” without spending a ton of money.
I was thinking of purchasing a small mixer possible a Mackie 1402 VLZ PRO, or a Soundcraft M8
Now here lies my confusion: Do I want to mix in pro Tools, in which case I could just get a control surface, or do I want to get a mixer to maybe help out my sound, and have more inputs? Am I really missing out by not having a mixer??
Any help, thoughts, or comments are greatly appreciated.
Thank you very much.

[Astar]

I asked the same question when i was at music store Long & McQuade. The answer: If you don't require to record more than 2 tracks at a time, you may not have full benefit from a mixer. One benefit is you actually have full control of everything at your fingertips, but In my opinion, whats wrong with using mouse?

[innesireinar]

On PSW and Gearslutz people like GM and Bob Katz say that by mixing ITB you can achive better results than mixing into a large console. I can't confirm this but I assume that mixing into PT is better than going into a toy like those you listed. Save your money or put them into a good converter, preamp, mic and hi-end plugins like Sony Oxford stuff.
Hope this help.

[M.Brane]

Yeah you'd need to spend a hell of a lot of money to make analog mixing worth the trouble. Think 5 digits in front of the decimal point at least.

Just make sure you leave yourself plenty of headroom when you track/mix, and you'll be fine. Save the loudness for mastering.

[innesireinar]

I asked the same question when i was at music store Long & McQuade. The answer: If you don't require to record more than 2 tracks at a time, you may not have full benefit from a mixer. One benefit is you actually have full control of everything at your fingertips, but In my opinion, whats wrong with using mouse?

Maybe Long & McQuade doesn't know that the 002 has more than two input.

[Bugly]

It would be good to hear one of your mixes.

[innesireinar]

Mine?

[Naagzh]

Now here lies my confusion: Do I want to mix in pro Tools, in which case I could just get a control surface, or do I want to get a mixer to maybe help out my sound, and have more inputs? Am I really missing out by not having a mixer??
Any help, thoughts, or comments are greatly appreciated.
Thank you very much.

An external control surface would make editing much quicker, after the learning curve. Do you have alot of editing requirements?

If you send your audio out to a mixer, you're converting the digital audio to analog, then processing with the board, then sending it back into PT (converting the analog back to digital). The AD converters and wordclock circuits on the 002 aren't the best, so you'd be degrading the quality of the audio. Even with high-end converters and clock, the signal would still be different, though less noticeably so. If you really like the flavor of an outboard piece of gear (a reverb or compressor), then it might be worth the trip.

As an experiment, try sending a guitar track out of one of the 002's outputs and back into a line-level input. Make sure your gain-staging is correct and record the exported guitar track onto a new track in PT. Now, compare the two guitar tracks. Like what you hear?