Rant About Mixers

Turns out my first choice of cheap replacement mixer, the Behringer Eurorack MX1604A for $220, has been discontinued.

I was told the new equivalent unit is the Behringer UB1204-PRO for $264.

I'm not sure what the hell the 12 in UB1204 is supposed to stand for because while I'm no mathematician, I only see eight inputs on there. Unless you're being retarded and counting the XLR inputs as an additional 4 inputs, which as I mentioned in the beginning of this sentence would be retarded. But the channel numbers on the board only go up to 8 so I don't even know if I buy that explanation. Dumb.

It also only has two stereo pair inputs which is right on the line of adequacy for me. I'd happily give up two of those preamp mono ins for one more stereo pair.

Just buy a mixer with more inputs, you might say to me. Okay no problem, but the next model up is the Eurorack UB1622FX-PRO which while having two extra stereo inputs and channel inserts also has all this effects crap I don't want on my mixer at all.

Getting back to complaining about the UB1204 -- the assumption seems to be that I, Brad extreme budget musician, am going to be doing a whole hell of a lot of microphone work -- up to four at once even. I've never used more than one microphone at a time and I don't see it happening any time soon. I'm not all that different from your average cheap-ass geek musician. Less micing is going on and way, way more DI. Why aren't mixing boards reflecting this?

The other annoying aspect is this all-in-one preamp and mixer business. Honestly after having my Mackie die I'd like a less expensive mixer that has all the same features (clean signal, ALT-3-4, mute buttons, simple EQ) but didn't bother with preamps. It seems like it would cut the price down considerably and you could go off and blow your money on a nice preamp. And when one of the two died you could save a bit of money just replacing that part. But there doesn't seem to be any option for that either.

So it looks like unless some better option turns up I'll probably grudgingly (and desperately) pick one of these UB1204's up on the weekend and hope I can live with the input situation.