In the world of pro-audio, it seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same. The standard has risen in the industry over the past few years as a whole. While bringing costs down, the inclusion and availability of quality mic preamps, AD/DA converters, mixers, DAWs and computer interfaces has flooded the market with affordable solutions for the recording musician. All of this sounds great until you try and select something out of this giant buffet of gear, there seems to be an endless supply of modules and components to mix/match for specific tasks, with nothing really coming close to being a simple, usable solution in one box.

While it is not a complete turnkey solution (yet)…Alesis has brought to market a multi-function box that is closing the gap between professional results and a single flexible device at a reasonable cost.

From a broad overview… the iMultiMix8 is or has:

• A portable field recorder

• An 8 channel mixer

• A stereo USB interface to a computer

• Easy to use control surface

• 4 quality mic preamps

• 50db of gain available on each of 4 channels

• 3 Band EQ on 4 discrete channels and 2 stereo channels

• Internal digital effects on the bus

• Main mix and Control Mix out/sends

• Rugged steel chassis

• No fuss setup, plug and play.

All of this in a footprint that is small enough to fit in a briefcase or even a laptop case for portability.

On first view, one can’t help but notice the built in iPod dock in the unit, which serves as storage medium for field recording of stereo mixed output. The layout of the channel strips is well done/attractive, the mastering section and the end user documentation is very good. Alesis put nearly everything on top of the unit for easy access, with only the USB port, phantom 48v switch, power switch and power connection on the rear of the box. The overall design of the package works very well, easy to add/remove instruments, inputs and outputs.

I am a recording guitarist and my needs, while simple, require flexibility for the different environments I use audio equipment in. I will describe the ways I have used this Alesis product in the scenario’s that follow – it should be noted that this is the only piece of gear that has been able to perform ALL of the tasks that follow – usually, I require more modules or differing equipment to perform all listed here.

Scenario 1: Two dynamic microphones and guitar direct into the mixer – not only was the 50db gain sufficient to bring my guitar and dynamic vocal mic's up to a usable levels to record with – the first two channels of the iMultiMix8 has an impedance switch specifically for instrument level/high impedance input, such as a guitar or bass. Yes, as a guitarist you can plug into your floor based guitar processor and run directly into the mixer from it w/o the need for a DI box to match the device impedances.

Scenario 2: Testing a condenser mic using the phantom power supply was a pleasure – while the phantom power isn’t as clean as that in a $2000.00 mixer unit or a $500 dedicated supply, it was still exceptionally clean and quiet enough to generate CD quality source signal for mixing/recording. The resulting acoustic tracks I recorded were clear, vibrant and bright.

Scenario 3: Using the control room and main mix outs – discovering that the control room send is on the same bus as the headphones, I plugged in a set of nearfield reference/powered monitors to this output with complete control, the bus is very clean. The main mix in my case here would be used to go to either external tape or to a PA system. The source paths are switchable in/out, so you can choose what send/mix is going where and when, very important when you want to separate your mixes for whatever reasons.

Scenario 4: Playing the iPod – There are many versions of iPods out there and they are not all the same or compatible with the iMultiMix8, following is a table to help determine which ones are fully supported, playback only, and not supported.

This link provides help in determining/identifying your iPod and version software if you don't know how to find it on your iPod: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61688. The software versions in the table above are the latest at the time of this article and will work with the iMultiMix8.

Once you have that straightened out – the control center on the iMultiMix8 for the iPod works great, one touch recording/playback and I actually prefer the Alesis jog wheel over the iPod wheel. In use, I was able to playback my iPod playlists to the monitors, and I was able to playback to the computer, while simultaneously recording live instrument input from the main bus. The control center has an iPod level control to allow you to mix in signal from the iPod with either the main mix or the control room mix. The pass through function via USB to the computer allows the iPod to be recorded at the computer. The ability to play into the main or control room mixes has the obvious advantage in a live setting where you are between sets and want some music playing during your break. No more fiddling with tape decks.

Scenario 5: Playing source data on the computer – Through the USB connection, playing any media player, audio signal will enter the unit through the Tape/CD bus. This means that you can also use the iMultiMix8 as your computer sound card, which gives you the option of recording audio to the iPod simultaneously with the main mix, or just playback through connected monitors/PA. This also provides monitoring functions from inside of a computer recording application as well. Note that incoming signal will be a single stereo channel (L/R).

Scenario 6: Recording to the computer through USB – This unit has the ability to take any of the various audio sources (Main/Control/iPod/Tape/CD inputs) and provide a stereo channel to a computer recording application. Using level controls from the various sections of the unit, you can send tracks with no hassle at all. There are some drawbacks in the USB implementation and are noted in the ‘What’s Missing?” section of this article, but for the singular recording musician, this USB implementation works just dandy. I used the unit to play backing tracks from the iPod while I played live with them, and record that stereo mix to the computer – the signal reproduction is CD quality at 16 bit, with no noticeable noise, great for knocking out quick tracks.

Scenario 7: Recording to the iPod – The control section of the iPod features one button recording, when recording with the iPod, again… any/all sources may be routed to it and a limiter function is included to prevent overloading of the iPod. I found this feature of the unit superb as a ‘sketch pad’, enabling me to quickly capture ideas as I was playing with a single button push, very handy. The record function could also be used in the field to capture your live gig/band mix directly to the iPod for later podcasting. When a stereo channel is recorded to the iPod, it goes in as a Voice Memo under the Extra’s menu of the iPod, a default name is given to it that is the time stamp of the recording. This can easily be edited/moved in iTunes at a later time when you connect your iPod to your computer.

Scenario 8: Using the unit with other applications – I tested the iMultiMix8 with a variety of applications including; Cubase LE (included with unit), IK Multimedia’s Amplitube, Riffworks, Mackie Tracktion, Audacity, and Steinberg WaveLab. The USB implementation of this unit worked fine for Cubase, Audacity and WaveLab, exposing the stereo signal for recording or playback in either direction.

Scenario 9: Using the unit for online jamming – I also found that the default USB implementation worked with Adobe’s Flash product, using it as a Flash microphone for online chatting and/or jamming. This is an important feature to me personally as Gearscore has JamChat, which is Flash based. Another perk I found was the ability to record simultaneously while playing and capture/record jam sessions in JamChat – something I have never been able to do with a variety of gear up to this point. If you are the sort of person that does any serious musical collaboration on the web through Flash based applications, you will be very pleased at the functionality of this unit.

What works really well...

• The Level meters included on the unit are very easy to read, and right on the money – I prefer LEDs as in this unit, over analog meters or a slider display. The LEDs are clear, split into 3 colors and can be seen easily from a distance.

• There are 100 preset digital effects which can be assigned to any channel through the Aux post/loop. The effects include pitch shifting, multiple types of reverb, flange, chorus and 10 ‘mixed’ effect presets. Since only one effect may be used on the bus at a time, I found the effects to be limited, but still very useful, the reverbs in particular were excellent for vocals. The effects aren’t world beaters, but they are clean, responsive and useful – a real plus on a unit of this size and price.

• The control strips on all 6 main channels are excellent for a unit of this size, with known Alesis quality, I was not surprised by the 3 band EQs, Pan/Level or Aux Pre/Post functions, they all worked as I expected them to, which is very good, no quirkiness as I have found on other mixer surfaces costing twice the amount of this unit.

What’s Missing?

Before I get into much critique here, I need to state that for what this unit does, what it is advertised to do and how well it performs those functions at the price it comes in at… there is nothing to complain about. I intentionally named this section “What’s Missing?” in respect to what more I would want to make it 'perfect' for me, as this unit crosses many barriers, but falls a tad short in being the “whole solution” (which no one else has either).

• USB v1.1 implementation is default; when the unit is plugged in, a default codec (Windows) is loaded, there is no driver specifically made for this unit. I found that to be a drawback when working with other applications and the inability to work with latency control is a little annoying. I elected to load the freely distributed ASIO4ALL driver and assigned it to the USB Codec – this fixed any issues I had by making the unit available as a true ASIO device on the computer. Applications mentioned earlier that I tested this unit with ALL worked perfectly, I was also able to adjust latency to a minimum and experienced no lag in audio signal no matter what the routing to/from was or to any application I tested it with. This is a minor bump in the road, I think it would has been nice for Alesis to provide an optimized, dedicated ASIO driver for this unit, even though the ‘fix’ is free and easy to install.

• Another wish list item is the exposure of all channels to a computer multi-track recording application. This would mean going to USB 2.0 for the enlarged data pipe, but having a box like this, that already does everything else mentioned, having true multi-track capability would be icing on the cake. As I mentioned earlier, a single user/bedroom/home recording musician can work around this easily, but mic’ing a drum set or recording multiple instruments at once through the mixer, really requires a full multi-track exposure to applications for post mix and mastering. As it stands right now, the stereo channel exposure works just great, but with the features of this particular unit, it just begs for a next step implementation of multi-track functionality.

• Field recording to the iPod is hindered by having to get the ‘perfect mix’, as once you commit the recording to iPod, there is no further manipulation of it. The iPod itself is not capable of recording more than a single stereo channel (L/R) – so storing multiple raw tracks for later mixdown on the iPod is out of the question. I do think however, that the addition of an SD memory card for temporary storage of multiple tracks would provide a great solution to this unit. Thus allowing a better mix at a later time to send to the iPod, or if there was multi-track functionality as previously mentioned – the ability to carry that raw field track data back to a computer application for post mix/mastering would be nothing short of sweet.

• Fader/Level control on the Tape/CD inputs – just what it says, not necessary, but would be a nice addition for full control over all inputs.

• Could I possibly add more? Sure I can! I do so because this unit has ALL of the potential to become the ‘UltraMix’ turnkey solution! Plumbing pass through MIDI into this unit would be the last step, with a driver to operate computer based faders and triggers, not to mention providing an interface for that MIDI keyboard – eliminating yet another external device! Ok, I am going wild now!

Specifications

CONTROLS [Mixer Section]
_4 mic/line channels with 75Hz highpass filter switch and mic/line gain (first 4 channels only)
_3-band EQ (high shelving at 12kHz, mid bandpass/reject at 2.5kHz, low shelving at 80Hz)
_Aux send A (pre-fader)
_Aux send B (post-fader, onboard or external effects)
_Pan or Balance control
_Level control
_Effect section with selector plus clip and signal LEDs
_Aux return A level
_Effects/Aux return B level
_Main out level with 2-track to Mix switch
_Headphone/control room out level with 2-track to control room switch
_Stereo 8-segment LED meters

CONNECTIONS
_USB 1.1 Stereo input/Output for PC and Mac
_All 1/4" TRS except as noted: Mic in x 4 (XLR), mono line in x 4, stereo line in x 4, aux sends x 2, stereo aux returns x 2, stereo main out, stereo control room out, headphone out
_2-track stereo in and out (RCA)

POWER
_18V AC external transformer

GENERAL
_Weight: 5 lb 13 oz
_Dimensions (W x H x D): 13.38" x 3" x 9.75

The Final Word

Wow… can you tell I got carried away with my wish list items on this piece of gear? Well, the reason is… Alesis is one of the few if not the only one to come within a hairs breadth of delivering a real groundbreaking piece of gear here. With the iMultiMix8, they have closed the gap on many things, I can shelve my tape deck, computer interface, mixer, multi-track DAW and forget to bring the laptop along in the field – all handled by this one unit with a small enough footprint to make it feasible to tote around.

For a street price of $299.00, the iMultiMix8 is feature packed, and a quality audio processing unit. You could easily spend that much money on one device facet of this units feature set and still be looking for the rest of this units features. For the home recording musician or small band on a budget, looking to manipulate mix and signal in a variety of ways with one piece of gear, combined with convenience and ease of use – this unit from Alesis is going to be very hard to beat. If you need more channels, the unit is also available in a 16 channel version as well.

One can only wonder what the future holds, but it is obvious that Alesis’ commitment to new product development and history of producing great gear to date – benefits us all with whatever they may cook up next!

Big thumbs up!