Alesis MultiMix 16 FireWire 16-Channel Analog Mixer

All I have to say is this is the best bang for the buck. The MultiMix is a great interface as well as a very good stand alone mixer. How did I ever live without it? I think I need another....

The Alesis MultiMix FireWire seems so promising. It can record all sixteen channels simultaneously into discrete tracks in Logic Studio. It is quite affordable. It can record 24-bit. It sounds pretty good. For the price, it's only a bit more than a plain old two-channel firewire or USB audio interface. But all that is marred by problems with the Mac OS X drivers. Configure your machine to go to sleep after a certain period? When it wakes up, it will crash. The traceback will show the crash occurred from within the Alsesis firewire drivers. Talk to Alesis tech support? "Your memory's not fast enough." "It's Apple's fault." Et cetera. This has been going on for seven months. Finally after sending them the crash reports, they agree it's not the memory speed. They post a beta release of a new driver. It's worse. It'll work for maybe an hour and then freak out. Audio starts glitching. The only thing you can do is shut down the computer, power-cycle the mixer, and boot back up. (Loud pop when you turn it on. Lame!) You might get an hour. You might get two. Or you might get five minutes. I want to like this unit. I would like it, if it actually worked with the Mac. As it is, I'm going to have to buy some kind of audio interface that actually works.

Project Studio? Live? It performs well in both arenas. I use if for my band's live mixer and it works beautifully. The onboard DSP is great and simplifies my setup (no outboard gear). For a DAW / Project Studio application I would have to give it an incomplete rating because I have struggled to get it synchronized with Logic (loaded on my MacBook Pro). I am working through some driver issues and have not resolved them yet...I will check back when I have resolution. I am currently using the main mix outs from the analag section of the mixer to the unbalanced inputs of my MAudio firewire solo (and it works fine). However, this is just a short term bandaid...and I hope to have it fixed shortly. Overall, it is a great piece of gear. Factor in the price and you have a great value. Alesis Technical Support has been ok. More to come...I sell technology for a living, so I know that software issues can be a pain (and I knew this going in). The hard part is getting it synched...

I originally placed the order on July 27 and was told 2-5 day shipping. I got an email on the 30th stating they needed to verify some information so I called and was told the verification department was closed. I called again on a different time and was told they were closed again. I was finally able to get a hold of them today and was told the order would not ship until next week. I need it this weekend so I asked if they could ship it overnight and was told no so I asked to speak with a supervisor. I spoke with Brandon who actually told me I was stupid for asking him to ship it overnight because he had been told not to ship orders overnight. He actually called me stupid. My order was not shipped as promised so I called again on August 9th to find out why and was told Brandon had cancelled my order and notated the account I had requested this. I couldn?t believe it. He made unauthorized changes and falsified account remarks, and this is a supervisor! I will never order from Guitar Center again.

Two words, my friends: Supreme value. If you are looking to create an entery to mid level DAW for a home project studio...this little $399 gem is a compelling option. It works great as a live mixer (with some nice little onboard effects) and has enough ins/outs to do most of what you will ever need (I mean, how much can you expect for $399?) It is worth it just for the D/A interface...not to mention the flexibility of having 16 input channels to layer down. I will update my review after my upcoming recording session. So far, so good...

Alesis A supremely versatile mixer that'll put your best sound forward! The Alesis MultiMix 16 FireWire is an 16-channel analog mixer/FireWire interface with 8 mono channels, 4 stereo channels, and smooth 60mm faders. You get preamps with XLR and 1/4" balanced ins and phantom power on mono channels; balanced 1/4" ins, aux send, and stereo aux return on stereo channels; 28-bit effects; 3-band EQ on each channel; 1/4" balanced main and monitor outs; a headphone jack; and 24-bit, 44.1/48kHz A/D/A conversion. Steinberg Cubase LE is included.