The board is designed for multitrack pop-rock recording. It is entirely suitable for 8 to 24 track recording and could be plugged right in without any mods or kluges to do such work. Six aux buses cover a multitude of needs, and with 6 stereo returns you have 44 inputs (32 ins plus 12 returns) to the stereo buses for mixdown without even breathing hard. For those difficult mixes including racks of synths locked up with the multitrack in a Virtual Kakaphony of MIDI Madness, Mackie has thoughtfully made Mix B readily assignable, so that each I/O strip has two signal paths that can be assigned to the stereo buses. This means 32 mic/line inputs, plus 32 tape inputs, plus twelve returns. A little quick higher math indicates 76 possible feeds to the stereo mix buses! This is probably enough for your basic home studio. My point is that the board will handle a 24-track recorder with ease and enough support redundancy to handle the myriad mixdown demands for extra signal paths as you get creative. You could easily get it to handle 32-track recordings, as the monitoring is available and all you'd have to do is split the feeds going to tracks 17-24 to also feed tracks 25-32 of the multitrack. It's cheap enough, at the same time, to be viable for your basic 8-track operation. If you are running only four tracks, it does seem a little much.

Mackie also suggests that the board is useful for broadcast and audio-for-video work, as well as sound reinforcement. These applications are certainly possible, but to my mind a little off focus for the board. Particularly, it seems limited as a stage monitor mixer, due to the lack of a matrix with lots of processing capability on the outputs, as you need when you get serious about your stage monitors. However, the insertion points are there so there are work-arounds possible. Whatever, the board is certainly flexible and if you want to use it for a variety of functions, on location and back at the ranch, you'll find it will do most anything you want with comparatively few headaches or jury rigs.

The Great, The Awful and the Grungy

It seems crass, when somebody sells you an honest-to-God Corvette-beater for the price of a Yugo, to bitch about the cigarette lighter location. It is hard to criticize this board, because it is so well focused and executed, particularly for its price. Obviously, great pains were taken to build the console to a price, and Mackie must be congratulated on the quality of its execution. Nonetheless, I have some bitches, so let me get 'em out of the way:

The lack of a pol rev switch is serious - thank God we can work around it.
I'd prefer that the Mute lights were Channel On lights (off when muted rather than on when muted).
It'd be nice to have total isolation between mic and line input jacks (a switch is supposed to disconnect things, and I can see myself screwing up something at % AM because of this), and total stability of the mic preamps (I admit this is really pretty picky).
I'd like a more comprehensive monitor section (separate studio and control room sections, more selection of external signals to monitor, slate tone/test oscillator, dim switch). A suggestion regarding the oscillator: Mackie should just fit a patch point with attenuator summing at the mic amp for the talkback mic. Then we could fit any dumb ol' oscillator we had lying around and do slate tones, tape deck alignments and all of that essential nerdy stuff real easy, at little cost to anybody. Be a nice addition for the Mark II.
It'd be nice if Mackie offered a more comprehensive outboard patch bay as an option. As it stands, there's not a single multiple in sight, and no reasonable way to patch to the outboard EQ in the rack, except to buy a whole batch of 12' cords 'n adapters and learn once again to crawl among the dust bunnies. This will get a little tiresome during a complicated 24-track mix session, particularly for us fogies. (Note: just as I've gotta send this off, I find there is a "sidecar" module available, for fitting a full patch bay. I couldn't get any details.)

Minor quibbles have to do with the light-weight, plasticky feel of the knobs, the somewhat indefinite action of the switches (I sometimes can't feel if I've actually engaged them) and very light action of the faders. Also, I don't really care for the stock meters, except for their broad range.

The positive qualities of the console far outweigh these complaints. Aside from the spectacular price/performance ratio, the board has some really excellent touches:

Careful silk-screening and meticulous attention to level matching makes the board very easy to manage levels with, even for the brain-dead among us. It is very forgiving and very clear. Unity gain (also known as design center) is extremely well shown and easy to maintain, making safe 'n sane operation a cinch.
Careful consideration of the range of recorders the board is likely to be hooked up with has led to excellent decisions regarding input and output levels, so it will plug in anywhere with no fuss or muss (or, as the cyberpunks say, it will interface with anything).
Robust construction. The unit came out of the box after multiple shippings and handlings, plugged in in twenty minutes and has worked perfectly since. Calibration of controls seems right on, the unit meets or exceeds its specifications, hum and noise are very well taken care of, and very quickly I found myself making use of the board's level management with ease and effectiveness. In spite of the light feel of the controls, the board gives every evidence of being built for hard service.
The board has decent specs and as far as I measured, it met 'em. Hum is really well suppressed, and harmonic distortion products are almost 80 dB below nominal level (I used +4 dBu). I didn't measure response formally, but pink noise was absolutely flat.
Mackie has fitted some very useful center detents for both levels and EQ pots. Happily, they're consistent from channel to channel.
The board has a really nice stereo solo system.
The board has a good, flexible EQ section with really nice shelving equalizers in addition to the parametrics.
Mackie provides an excellent, well-written manual that is comprehensive enough for the experienced user and at the same time very clear and detailed for the novice, with nice sections on jacks, patching, signal flow and applications. The manual is a model document for this sort of work. All they gotta do is add a brief section on Pol Rev. Phone calls to the manufacturer with questions yielded quick access to friendly technical support. Curiously, sales info (options, the price of options, etc.) was a little harder to get.
Oh yes, I did listen to the console. It sounds great! Actually, just so you know, that was the first thing I did!

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