Mackie SRM650 stopped working on opening day of a bar

One of my friends invited me down for a bar’s opening day. I said I would drop by and I did. It was a nice, new cosy bar and the décor really caught my eye, making me feel at home. I ordered a San Miguel pint and waited for my friend to arrive as he was a the DJ at that place. Whilst waiting for my friend, I had a cursory look around at the sound-system setup, as that is something I am interested in. The sound-system was then playing some acid jazz and chill out music, which really added to the vibe.

The first thing that caught my eye were these 15″ powered Mackie SRM650s. Now I am no stranger to the Mackie SRM series of powered speakers. Mackie really started a revolution with the very popular Mackie SRM450s and almost every event company had these as their speaker of choice. I also saw a few event companies use the Mackie SRM550s as roadshow speakers and they were really popular as well. Then I came to this bar and noticed these SRM650s. You can see from the picture above that it is pretty high above my head. I will explain more later.

So at about 2030hrs, my friend came in and we were having a chat about the place. I met the owner and I found out that we have several friends in common. Then at 2100hrs, my friend starts his DJ set. All was going great until the speaker above my head just shutdown with no warning. I have no idea what caused it to fail so I am not speculating. All in all, the whole evening had to go on with only one of the SRM650 speakers supplying the audio while the other was as dead as doorknob.

Now what can we learn from this? First of all, one should never use powered speakers in a permanent install. So many things can go wrong like a power trip, amplifier module failing and such. The amplifier module failing is the Achilles Heel because you have to dismantle the whole damn speaker and send it for repair as the amplifier is built-in. So always use passive speakers in a permanent install. Secondly, never buy second-hand speakers. The installer had installed second-hand speakers in the place. I could tell just by looking below the speakers. There were lots of scruffs in the woodwork and it looked very obvious that these were second-hand. The problem with second-hand equipment is that you do not know how much abuse these speakers have been though before you bought them. This was a new bar. New, passive speakers should have been purchased.

In any case, I had a great evening, despite one of the speakers failing. Those SRM650s can really pack a punch!

Kramer amplifiers and a Mackie mixer

This was a rather strange install that I had to do for a client. Picture this. Two rooms. One room with a Poly Studio x70 and the other room with a Poly Studio x50. The two rooms have a removable divider between them. Clear so far?

Anyway, both rooms have ceiling speakers. The bigger room with the x70 has 4 Kramer Galil 6-CO speakers and the smaller room with the Poly Studio x50 has two Kramer Galil 6-CO speakers. The room with the x70 is connected to the mixer via a radial TX-J2. The master outs go to one of the two Kramer amplifier powering the 4 Kramer ceiling speakers. Now when the room divider is opened, the two Kramer ceiling speakers in the smaller room (connected to the second Kramer amplifier) will be used as they are controlled by the Control Room out of the mixer. The x50 in that small room will not be used.

Strange setup eh? There are many ways to handle divisible rooms like these but so far, this was the most economical way we could think of.

Mackie 402VLZ4 analogue mixer

I have not ruled out the possibility of getting this tiny Mackie 402VLZ4 mixer for my arsenal of tools. It is small and it will be very handy for shows. For one, it looks like it is more sturdily built than the Yamaha MG06, it’s almost direct competitor. Also, the stereo inputs look like they can take balanced or unbalanced inputs, which is perfect for those smaller controllers. In any case, it’s most notable features are:

• Amazingly rugged analog mixer with two microphone preamplifiers and one stereo channel
• Onyx mic preamps offer up to 60dB of gain for great performance with any mic
• Ultra-low-noise performance gives you clean, clear sound
• High-resolution stereo meters give you fast, easy visual indication of your signal levels
• Sealed rotary controls resist dust and grime

The thing I like about this are the input knobs. As described in the features above, they are less likely to be contaminated by dust and grime that are the bane of linear faders. But the thing that is a bit of a turn-off for me is the LOW and HI equalization knobs because there are no mids. But then again, this rather inexpensive mixer needs to sacrifice something for cost and real estate space so that is not really much of a choice there. There is no EQ for the solitary stereo input channel either. But what this mixer lacks, it makes up in portability. I am toying with the idea of getting one but I already have my Yamaha MG82cx. And like the MG82cx, the outputs are TRS balanced.

So will I get it? Probably not. But it is a great little mixer and all DJs and emcees should have one of these in their arsenal.

Mackie 1202 VLZ Pro analogue mixer

I was using this mixer as the mixer powering some speakers at an event a couple of days back. This mixer is no more in production and is one of Mackie’s first small analog mixers. In any case, I like the sound of it…it still sounded pretty good in spite of its age. It is also rather small and compact. However, what I did not like (and that could be due to age) was the gain trims on each XLR channel. These were scratchy but I suppose, after some servicing, it should be great. I used my trusty Pioneer DDJ-SB3 DJ controller, connected to it via the great-sounding Radial Pro D2 DI box. I tell you the sound was fantastic! I still am looking at getting a Mackie mixer but at the present, I will stick with my Yamaha till it conks out

Mackie ProDX8

I was looking through some DJ forums on the Internet and I came upon one DJ on one of those forums who said that he was trying to plug his Pioneer DDJ-SX2 controller into this Mackie ProDX8 and found the input to be rather “hot”. After telling him that he needed a female XLR to 1/4″ TRS connectors and plugging the TRS connectors into the combo slots of the ProDX8, I started looking at this Mackie digital mixer and see what it brings to the audio table.

There are two offerings from Mackie when it comes to the ProDX family. The ProDX8 is the larger of the two mixers in the series (the other being the ProDX4), and it has six ‘combi’ XLR/jack inputs, which can accept mic- or line-level sources, plus a further stereo channel (7/8), which can accommodate either Bluetooth audio streaming or a stereo line-level signal via a mini-jack socket (which overrides the Bluetooth source). There are balanced TRS jack outputs for the main PA, plus two pre-fader TRS balanced aux outputs (the ProDX4 has only one aux), used to feed independent monitor mixes. All of these outputs have their own seven-band graphic equaliser covering the 125Hz to 8kHz range. Other connections include a rear-panel mini-jack for headphones, and a mini USB port for loading updates.

The only thing that it does not have is phantom power and from what I have read, there is a a pretty bad noise-floor. The beauty of this mixer is that you can either use an Android phone or an iPhone. Oh, and I need to mention that wireless control is via Bluetooth rather than Wi-Fi.

But other than that, it looks like a good, solid mixer. Useful for the occasional live gig but that lack of phantom power just turns me off somewhat. You can get more info by going to Mackie’s website here.

Mackie 802VLZ4

I am seriously thinking of getting this mixer to replace my old Yamaha MG82cx. There is nothing wrong with my Yamaha mixer but I feel that this Mackie 802VLZ4 has got more options when it comes to the number of balanced inputs that I require for some shows. I realised that when I did a show fairly recently and I found that the sound was lacking and also the lack of balanced inputs were causing me issues. This Mackie 802VLZ4 has got more options and I think that it will serve me better. I did a post some time back on the previous generation of this mixer and the specs are pretty much the same. This mixer is gonna cost me about $300 but I think it will be worth it

Sad-looking mixer at a venue

Just last week I was at a venue to visit a friend who was conducting an event there. During the course of the event I had to help my friend with connections to the house mixer. And this is the house mixer. It is a Mackie mixer but you can tell from the pic that it has not been taken care of very well. Some might argue that it is just tape on the faders but to be honest, it looks like they bought this mixer and then realised that they needed stereo channels. That is what the “ganged” faders are for…to send two mono channels as a stereo mix

The mixer was also dusty to boot. One thing about dust and electronic devices is that they seldom work together well. Also, some of the gain controls were pretty sketchy and there was a lot of issue setting the gains. Looks like the next time, if I do an event in this place, I would be better off getting my own mixer and bringing it down

New cables for a temporary replacement mixer

Just last night, one of my colleagues told me that the Mackie mixer belonging to a client of mine has issues so it must be sent for repair. Unfortunately, the client needs the mixer for an event today. So we search our store and the only mixer that we have available is a Behringer Xenyx 802. But unfortunately, the Mackie mixer has XLR balanced outputs and the Behringer only has unbalanced 1/4″ outputs. So how do we solve this?

Simple. I asked my colleague if they had any DI boxes in the store. She said that we have a single DI box. So what I do is to make a XLR Y-cable and a couple of 1/4″ to 1/4″ TS phone jacks. I had some spare plugs and XLRs left over so they would do nicely. The way it is going to be connected is:

1. 1/4″ to 1/4″ TS phone plug cable will be plugged to the unbalanced output of the Behringer mixer
2. The other end of the 1/4″ to 1/4″ TS phone plug cable will be plugged to the input of the DI box
3. The output of the DI box will be connected to the XLR Y-cable
4. The two outputs of the Y-cable will be plugged into the existing XLR cables

This is the only way this is going to work. Meanwhile, I have to make sure we have a proper mixer with a balanced output. Unbalanced outputs like the one that Behringer has is not gonna cut it these days

Mackie Thumps powering a block party in Haji Lane

A few days back, I was with some friends at a block party in Haji Lane. Haji Lane is a quaint little place in Singapore with all kinds of shops and bars and this place was one of them. I had written an article about the Mackie Thumps before and I did not think that they were great speakers to get but for the money you pay for them, I suppose you get what you pay for, But these Thumps, in that Haji Lane area, were LOUD. But then again, it was an all-vinyl party so it was not the clearest of audio but still, it was loud and clear. I suppose for small block parties ike these, these will have to suffice…and suffice they did!

Mackie Onyx board

About a week ago, I was using this mixer at an event. I must say that it was a pretty good sounding mixer but the mixer had some issues with the faders and input gains. I suppose it had something to do with the age of this mixer. But I was pleasantly surprised at how hood it sounded. The even lasted nine hours and by the end of it, I must have discovered about six channels giving issues on this mixer. All this mixer needs is an overhaul and it should be sounding great again