Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)So admittedly, it looks cool...it's made by Alesis, a very trusted name in sound, and it docks an ipod for mixed playback for crying out loud. As a home studio musician who researches the hell out of all his gear, my need for a new updated mixer led me to this very modern looking and decidedly cool product.
I am very sorry to report that for those of you with Windows 7 64 bit, despite the updated drivers that you can download, you will have nothing but troubles despite a workaround here, and a small fix there. I really wanted it to work, I truly did. I even re-cabled my entire mix flow to try and accommodate the fact that Ableton Live was just not going to cooperate with it, and while it was a temporary fix, other issues presented themselves in the way of, for sake of ease, never getting a correct mix and balance of your different instruments without a mountain of tedious settings changes before recording each track. And as for mixing multiple instruments at the same time, good luck on that one. I never could figure if it was an Ableton problem or a Windows problem, or both. And I put at least 12 hours into it, reworking every variable. Even without using the supposed updated Alesis drivers, Windows will find its own generic USB Codec drivers, but those fail to play through in Ableton as well.
As for the ipod part, okay lets face it, who's got an ipod anymore, I've got an iPhone 4 with ipod as a feature. Nowhere online can you find this discussed, as I tried to find out if that would work with the mixer before my purchase. The answer is....for playback only! You cannot record your mix onto the iphone despite having the voice memo feature (which is what it supposedly records to). Maybe the recording to the ipod feature was a bit of a gimmick anyway, but I thought it would have been nice. In truth, I enjoyed using my iPhone for playback and using the jog wheel to scroll through the menus was a nice touch as well. It also acts as a charger. But I suppose there's little difference between that and playing your songs through your computer via itunes, or WMplayer, what have you.
It really is a shame too, the sound scape that was created after running through that mixer was really something. It was a noticeable difference and it really honed some of the sound of my recordings. The effects were a nice touch as well though after sampling them all, there really only 3 I would have ever used as a go to. One was a delay for the guitar, which sounded sweet and will be missed, though I am sure I can find other ways to achieve the same effect, I had never really played around with it.
In short, the product, had it been released 8-10 years prior, would have made a killing and taken the musician world by storm. Unfortunately it came out right with Windows 7 and Alesis could not buy the rights to make drivers for the format. Great device, huge fail. They have since DISCONTINUED the entire line. I wish I had come across that in my research as that would have been a clue. Sorry to see you go buddy, I returned it to amazon today. Time to hunt down it's replacement. I hope this helps.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Alesis iMultiMix 8USB
The iMultiMix 8 USB is a sturdy, compact all-in-one tabletop mixer and recorder that features 100 studio grade 28–bit digital effects, a built–in limiter to avoid distorted recordings and an integrated iPod dock with control wheel transport controls for fast, easy direct–to–iPod recording. As an important addition to the Alesis line of highly acclaimed mixers, the iMultiMix 8 USB is the first to feature integrated iPod control and recording capability. The iMultiMix 8 USB represents the first mixer to fuse together professional quality mixing, 3 band per channel EQ, guitar/line inputs and iPod recording in a single, intuitive package. For ultra–clean live recordings of nearly any performance, including home studios, musicians, podcasters, and houses of worship, the iMultiMix 8 USB is an ideal solution. Once recordings are completed simply use the convenient transfer to iTunes feature to move your recordings to a computer with Mac OSX or WindowsXP without need for a special driver or complicated set–up. All channels are recorded down to CD Quality stereo 44.1 or 48kHz.The iMultiMix 8 USB can also playback music from the iPod, and mix your live performance instantly with the iPod. This makes the iMultiMix 8 USB perfect for using the iPod as a backing track for solo or band performances, while mixing sound sources all in one compact, convenient place.iPod, iTunes, and Mac are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.
0 comments:
Post a Comment