Product: Akai MB76 Mix Bay
Price Paid: US $125 used
Submitted
11/05/1999
at
11:39am
by
Thomas Murawski
Email: pfi at foxvalley<dot>net
Ease of Use
:
7
You will want to read the manual. Not that this is an extremely difficult unit to figure out, but the manual is not lengthy and it is well worth reading to acquaint you with the basic programming procedures.
Sound Quality
:
9
Okay, this is a programmable mixing bay... so it doesn't really alter your sound. It allows you to route your signal to different pieces of equipment (FX processors, etc.) so you can use them all without having to unplug and switch. I am sure there are other uses you could find for it. It has 7 inputs and 6 outputs. Each input has a trim pot so that you can attenuate the signal coming in. The way this is designed is that you are able to patch any of the 7 inputs to any of the 6 outputs. You can of course patch more than one input to any output and vice-versa. This allows for quite a bit of flexibility. Once you have programmed the I/Os the way you want them you can save the information as a preset and recall it at any time. This unit can hold up to 32 presets which I think is more than enough (I only use about half that). This unit is midi controllable.
Reliability
:
10
I have never had any problems.
Customer Support
:
No Opinion
Never had to deal with them.
Overall Rating
:
8
I think this is a good unit for what it does. One of its limitations is the number of I/Os, but who has a thousand dollars or more to spend on a sophisticated programmable mix bay. My solution to this problem has been to purchase a second MB76. You will use up a lot of I/Os if you use stereo effects so the second one meets my needs for the time being (Enough I/Os for me to hook up about different 5 processors in stereo). I looked at a couple other similar units before purchasing this one - The Ibanez EPP 1440(?) effects patching programmer and the Yamaha PLS1 programmable line selector. The Yamaha was the noisiest monster I ever heard.... you could audibly hear it clicking every time you changed patches. The Ibanez didn't seem to offer quite the same features as the Akai. I would definitely buy another one if this one were lost, stolen, or if simply quit working (which I think unlikely).
