Ultra-small. Ultra-powerful. Ultra-awesome.
Mackie launched the Onyx-i series mixers last fall, with the notable benefit of Pro Tools M-Powered 8 compatibility. No other third-party company offers this. The Mackie Universal Driver Upgrade (which enables Pro Tools M-Powered 8 functionality) is a simple download from the Mackie website (usually costing $49.99). After installing the Mackie Universal Audio Driver, I first checked the Onyx 820i using Logic Pro 9 running on a Mac. Routing from the mixer using the clearly marked front‑panel Firewire buttons proved very simple, and within moments I had some existing recordings playing back via the monitor section of the Onyx.
Mackie Onyx 820i Driver Downloads
The feature-packed and performance-optimizing Onyx 820i is the most compact and desk-friendly version of the Onyx-i Series. With eight channels, three Onyx mic preamps, two aux sends, talkback, flexible control room routing and a variety of Perkins EQ configurations, there is plenty of analog goodness to go around. Plus, FireWire I/O lets you route all channels, auxes and the master L/R to nearly any DAW for recording and return a stereo signal to the control room or into a channel for mix integration. The 820i packs a big punch in a very small package.
When I click on the left button, white noise comes through the left monitor perfectly fine (and the left meter on the Onyx 820i goes up as it should). However, when I click the right button, the right meter of the Onyx 820i goes up, but there is no sound at all. I've checked all of my cables and connections. Mackie Onyx 820i Mixer; Mackie Onyx 1640i Driver; by Steve Cunningham. As anyone who’s been around the audio business for more than twenty minutes knows, Mackie has been making some very cool small mixers for a very long time. After all, the original Mackie 1604 is the stuff of legends. At AudioFanzine, we were very surprised when we first received the Onyx 820i. We have not heard anything about a new Mackie analog mixer series sold with ProTools M-Powered, and there was also no information about it to be found on the web! The unit comes with 'universal' drivers compatible with DigiDesign's sequencer.
Mackie Onyx 820i Driver Software
DEEP FIREWIRE INTEGRATION
The Onyx-i Series features deeper FireWire integration than any other mixer out there and offers immensely powerful routing capabilities:
Mackie Onyx 820i Driver Free
Wet or Dry? — Every channel on the mixer can be routed pre or post EQ to the computer, allowing you to choose whether to implement ‘EQ to tape’ or not.
Studio Quality Effects—All aux sends are routable to the computer, allowing you to utilize your computer as a powerful FX engine by implementing your favorite plug-ins in a live scenario.
Preserve Your Mix — Master L/R is routable to the computer for recording your analog mix. Burn and sell CDs of the mix at the end of the gig!
Mix Integration — Stereo return from the computer can be routed to either the control room for instant monitoring or to a stereo channel for mix integration.
Latency-Free Overdubs — Having a “real” mixer has its benefits. Latency-free overdubs are simple since you are using an analog mixer. No more wasted time dealing with the complicated “DSP” mixers commonly used on standalone interfaces.
The flexibility offered by the 820i allows you to work faster and more intuitively than ever before. Imagine a world where your recording sessions run smoothly, every single time. Dream of a live sound mix that is both archived for history and simultaneously recorded multi-track for later mixing. No need to dream, the 820i is here.
PREMIUM ANALOG MIXER
When it comes to the high pressure environment of a recording session or live performance, you simply cannot beat the stability and reliability of an analog mixer. With features honed over 20 years of design by some of the legends in the industry, the Onyx-i Series mixers are simply the best sounding full-featured analog mixing boards available to the modern sound engineer.
The 820i has a plethora of analog features that are sure to please. First off, there are three Onyx mic preamps which have been proven as some of the best boutique quality preamps available today. That is, without having to re-mortgage your house in order to pay for all the inputs you need. Then there’s the Perkins EQ, which offers highly musical Q filter without sacrificing the precise control that Mackie EQs are known for. Two mono mic/line channels feature 3-band Perkins EQ with a sweepable mid, the stereo line channels have 3-band EQ and (talk about flexibility) a unique hybrid channel features 4-band Perkins EQ. So, regardless of the type of signal you need to input, there is sure to be a channel with the right EQ for the application. Other analog tools include two aux sends with pre/post fader assignment, allowing for monitor mixes, effects loops or additional headphone mixes. There are built-in DIs on the first two channels for direct connection of guitars or bass and a dedicated talkback section with a built-in mic that lets you easily communicate with band members while on stage or recording. With all these proven, great-sounding analog features, it is easier than ever to create a memorable mix.
SMACKS OF QUALITY
The Onyx 820i offers a tremendous collection of professional analog features and extremely deep DAW integration, but it is so much more than that. The sleek, modern design might even tempt you build a museum quality display for your engineer friends to admire. Plus, since it’s a Mackie, you can be sure that it is “Built-Like-A-Tank” and will survive years of abuse.
Any audio company can cram a bunch of inferior components into a chassis and, believe us, a lot of them do. This is never the case with a Mackie mixer. Everything about the Onyx-i Series smacks of quality, because only the most quality, high-end components are used throughout the entire signal path. At the front end, you have the pristine signal boost offered by the Onyx mic preamps, which will likely get routed through the legendary Perkins EQ. The signal then passes through a series of sealed rotary knobs, which keep dust and grime out of the potentiometer. Then your mix hits the summing bus, which has been custom-designed to offer the highest possible headroom while preserving the sonic quality offered by the aforementioned components. Maybe you assigned the signal to stream across the FireWire outputs. If so, they had the pleasure of passing through the high-quality Cirrus analog-to-digital converter on their way to your computer. Or maybe you were overdubbing and streamed your backing tracks from your DAW and integrated them into the mix. In that case, you can thank the ridiculously high-end AKM digital-to-analog converter for the immaculate quality of the playback. These converters are extremely high-quality and easily rival the most esoteric (and expensive) interfaces out there today. From start to finish, no matter how you use it, the 820i offers the quality demanded by industry professionals.
THE MASTER SECTION
The Master section, which takes up nearly a third of the mixer’s total width, is home to the usual suspects including two 1/4” jacks for the AUX sends, four more for the two stereo AUX returns and another two for the MAIN outs. All of these are TRS jacks, capable of providing both balanced and unbalanced signal paths. A pair of RCA jacks serve as Tape In and Tape Out, creating a convenient way to connect to a master recorder or external sound source. The MAIN outs are also available on the rear panel as XLRs.
Next is 1/4” headphone out jack, and below that are the source buttons that govern what signals will be delivered to the phones. You can assign the MAIN mix, RCA tape input, FireWire channel 1-2 (straight from your computer), or Alt 3-4 signals to the Control Room outs or the phones. The Alt 3-4 choice is interesting, since the 820i uses another signature Mackie trick -- using a channel mute button to route the signal not into oblivion, but onto a second pair of busses which can be accessed on the rear panel.
Next to the source matrix you’ll find the only proper meter on the console -- a stereo LED ladder meter which clips at +20 dB. It makes good sense, inasmuch as the Onyx has a solid +22 dB of headroom overall. At the bottom of the meters is Mackie’s standard “Rude Solo” LED, without which no Mackie mixer would be complete. And yes, it flashes when any solo button is depressed.
The AUX master section is home to the two AUX Send masters, each with the aforementioned pre-post button. Next to these are the master Return level controls, along with a RTN TO AUX 1 switch to assign the AUX 2 return to go to the AUX 1 send. Flexible, yes? But wait, there’s more... an AUX SEND 1-2 TO FW 5-6 button allows you to route a copy of signals assigned to the AUXES into your computer where they can be processed using plug-ins and brought back into the Onyx via the AUX returns.
Despite all of this flexibility, there will be some that are not pleased by the signal routing that goes into the computer. The output of each channel in the Onyx goes to the computer pre-Insert and pre-EQ, or pre-fader and post-EQ. Ah, but there is an appendix in the PDF manual entitled “Appendix F: Modifications.” It seems that if you’re willing to take your Onyx 820i to a Mackie service center, you can have your board modified so that the signal sent to your computer is, for example, post-fader or post-insert. You can’t say that Mackie doesn’t try to give you what you want.
OFF TO THE COMPUTER
Two FireWire 400 jacks on the rear panel allow the Onyx 820i to send and receive digital audio from your computer. Remember, in no way will the Onyx control your computer, but its built-in FireWire interface does allow you to send your tracks into the computer, having gone through all of the delightful analog goodness described above. And of course, you can bring them back from the Onyx for playback.
These operations require that drivers be installed on your computer. Mackie makes drivers available for both Windows and Macintosh computers; a “universal” driver for the PC actually contains both a SIM and WDM drivers, and requires either Windows Vista or XP SP2. There is no mention on the website of Windows 7 support, at least not yet. On the Mac side, OS X is supported through snow leopard, using a core audio driver. All of these drivers are available from Mackie’s website.
My first test utilized the ASIO driver with Adobe Audition 3 running under XP. After I’d installed the drivers (a simple enough task), I fired up Audition, selected the ASIO driver in preferences, and Audition saw all eight channels immediately. I successfully recorded multiple tracks simultaneously, with no clicks or pops. The Onyx will do 88.2 or 96 kHz sample rates, and you can change the sample rate from within Audition thanks for ASIO. However, the CPU load at higher sample rates goes up proportionately, so I stuck to 44.1 and 48 for eval purposes.
The only real difficulty I had was with the trim control on the microphone inputs. Like many inexpensive mixers I’ve used over the past few years, the taper used in the trim controls on the Onyx is iffy at best. With an Electro-voice RE-20 microphone plugged in, I had to crank the trim control up near its maximum position. Given the RE-20s low output level that didn’t surprise me, but I did have difficulty dialing in the exact level I wanted near the top of the knob’s travel. It seemed that those last few degrees were more sensitive than the rest, and just felt, well, fiddly. But Audition seemed happen enough, and the old RE-20 really did sound good through analog circuitry.
Running ProTools M-Powered 8 was a little different. As you might guess, ProTools M-Powered is not included with the Onyx, nor is it available for sale from Mackie. The M-Powered software carries a price of $249. In addition, you’ll need to get an another driver from Mackie that costs $49.99 and install that in order to make it all work. That little driver is what makes the Universal Driver work with ProTools M-Powered. It turns out that if you’ve ever installed an older version of ProTools, you’ll then have to hunt down and remove any of the old pref files before M-Powered will install successfully.
However, once I’d sorted out those issues on a MacBook Pro, Pro Tools M-Powered started right up. I then took a quick trip to the I/O Setup menu, clicked the Default button for both the inputs and outputs, and M-Powered saw all eight ins and two outs on the Onyx 820i. As with Audition, the old mics do sound nice in ProTools having been through some analog circuitry first.
WRAP UP
As far as I’m concerned, the only iffy item in this Onyx package is its ProTools compatibility. If Mackie wrote their own driver as a result of some clever reverse-engineering, then it’s possible that Avid (Digi’s parent) could sue, in which case that compatibility could be lost.
Yeah, and so what. The Onyx is a very competent little analog mixer at an entry level price. Its built-in interface is compatible with most popular editing software, so what’s the big deal? From an audio standpoint, it’s a nice-sounding little board, with mic preamps whose trim controls are a bit fiddly, and which will generate a little noise if you push the level hard. But the EQ sounds good, the signal path is otherwise clean, and the build quality seems very good. All in all, it’s a nice little entry-level board with some heavy bells and whistles. Steve sez check it out.
The Mackie Onyx 820i Firewire mixer carries a suggested US retail price of $649.99, although street prices tend to be just under $500. For more information worldwide, visit www.mackie.com.
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