Mackie Onyx8

I've never written a review but this experience has been so defrauded that i had to. i bought this mixer for small live studio recordings, and for using live in concert last year.

Twice this mixer let me down in live performances by dropping volume of some channels out of the blue. Troubleshooting has led me to the mixer. I immediately went back to my older mixer and had no troubles since. Contacted Mackie support and got an IDK answer to why this happens, and its not a faulty device. We're way past the 30 day return by now.

After this I've used it for studio recordings, and small sessions, but it gets no better. Channels 7-8 (or 1-2) record the master out regardless, so it only records 6 channels and 7-8+stereo out, not 8 channels which was not what was advertised in the description. Channels 3-4 and 5-6 have no line gain and rely on whatever volume you can throw at it. 7-8 can't go to fx but i've seen it elsewhere so just a heads up.

Not all is terrible, FX are ok and can be recalled fast, menu diving is not very complicated, bluetooth is easy and quick to set up, and it's built like a tank.

In the end it sits in my studio desk, controls my monitors, I can play music on them if im working far away, can record something on the fly. There are way cheaper options for this

Beautiful little machine - well crafted with solid heavy interface components. But with my set up and hopeful only my setup the device demands high input levels to register a good meter reading. Tried guitar and synth. Perfect sound reproduction but with likely problems when actually recording in typical fashion. Full gain produces loud hiss. Yet the signal is not sufficiently 'meter-loud' without it. This little beast is VERY loud and my only solution was to turn my Mackie MR8 2 speakers down almost to zero since they have a small volume dial at the rear. Can't fault the sound - just the setup itself. The reverb is passable and so the delay but the chorus and flanger effects do no justice to serious performance. It is a feature laden product but my newish laptop does not recognise the usb connectivity. I hope I have a faulty product because as such this audio interface is not 'fit for purpose'. I suppose there are solutions like using a pre-amp but THIS is meant to be THE pre-amp I was looking for. Never mind - it's just my experience and hopefully you will have a better one. A much better one.