I've been facing a dilemma. Every now and then the screen would start flickering on my digital mixer, sometimes staying unreadable for minutes if not hours on end. The mixer serves as the main audio "nexus" in my studio... so it's rather important. It still passes sound perfectly in this state, but being an early gen digital mixer, much of the functionality is lost (I can't pan, route busses, adjust EQ or compression, etc). I considered working to repair the gear, but it's old equipment and replacement parts are iffy at best, my studio would be out of commission during that work time, and there's no guarantee it would work at all.
Aside from all of that, the digital mixer is currently the limiting factor in my signal chain, the lowest common denominator at 16bit/48khz. So I decided I'd replace it. Instead of going with another mixer, I figured I'd keep working towards the software route... since it's come such a long ways and seems to show a *LOT* of promise. I got a Mackie Blackbird Onyx sound card (8 analog ins, 8 adat ins), and a Mackie MCU-Pro control surface for my DAW. I'm starting to feel a bit like a Mackie gear whore... but I've always been happy with the build quality and performance, so I figured I'd give them a shot.
Anyways, I still have a lot to do to complete the setup. The patchbays have been ripped apart, and are halfway put back together... I still have a lot of learning to do on the MCU control surface too. But already I really like what it brings to my workflow. In the end, once digital I'll be 24bit/96khz capable, with some *rocking* preamps on the sound card.
