That Brand X mixer sounds OK at the music store when the salesperson demos just two channels with a CD player. But when you take it home, connect all 16 channels to your hard disk recorder or computer, and start mixing down, it sounds like an old Buick hitting a row of empty garbage cans. You, my friend, are out of mix-amp headroom.

Headroom (the ability to handle multiple, intense signals without distortion) has always been what sets Mackie mixers apart from hobby toys. Our VLZ3 mixers have headroom to spare, even when you've loaded every channel with sizzling hot inputs. In fact, our compact mixers are the #1 choice of professional electronic percussionists for just that reason.

The bottleneck in any mixer is the mix amplifier, where all signals come together. If it can't handle the full force of a dozen or so simultaneous inputs plus aux returns, you'll hear some very nasty distortion, indeed. As more and more signals are summed together by the console mix amp, the output level invariably rises toward its maximum operating level. As shown in the top figure, each time the number of input signals is doubled, the output level increases by as much as 3dB. It doesn't take long to overload a conventional mix amp. And backing down the main faders won't get you out of the red, since the bottleneck occurs well before this point.

All Mackie VLZ3 mixers use our distinctive negative gain mix amplifier architecture. Instead of mixing channels together at unity gain, where headroom is quickly exhausted, our mixers achieve more headroom by mixing at -6dB (second figure). This means they can handle up to four times the number of hot signals before clipping (last figure), and provide more than double the headroom offered by many other compact mixers.

It's a difference you'll notice immediately, whether you're running live, or mixing down to a digital recorder in the studio.

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Conventional faders can make accurate level control hard… and smooth fades nearly impossible (fig. 4a). About half of the way down, the sound just disappears. That’s because of the way those simple, low-cost D-taper faders are made (fig. 5).

The faders on our VLZ3 mixers feature a precision log-taper design. A complex series of additional resistive elements are actually screened onto the wiper’s path (fig. 6). The resulting precision, logarithmic taper gives you amazingly smooth, consistent fades that extend the full length of the control surface (fig. 4b).

But that’s not all. Our VLZ3 faders use an internal wiper design that incorporates a special long-wearing contact material, which was originally developed for weatherproof exterior sensors. You get longer fader life and improved resistance to the dust and other crud that inevitably finds its way past even the tightest lip seal.

At Mackie, we know faders are the first things you reach for, so we make sure they are the best. Nobody does faders better than Mackie.

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Mackie compact mixers have been dubbed “Mackie Throw Pillows.” Why? Because they have survived events such as earthquakes, many being hurled clear across studios. They’d taken the full impact of falling out of pick-up trucks at full late-for-a-show speed, without so much as a broken knob. Several were even buried by collapsed ceilings, only to be unearthed, tested and declared in perfect working order.

The VLZ3 mixers have an even stronger design than ever, with rolled edges, rounded corners, heavy steel contruction, and the feel and weight that is all rugged and butch. Try picking one up and feel the difference. This is the built-like-a-tank construction we are proud of.

Many of our competitors make three critical design mistakes that often lead to expensive repair bills. First, they use unsealed potentiometers containing brittle phenolic material as the base for their potentiometer’s wiper. Next, they mount the pots on vertical circuit boards. Finally, many mixers have pots whose bushings extend through chassis holes. This is a deadly combination when something heavy falls on the mixer.

When downward force is exerted on this kind of knob, all of the shear force is transmitted to the control and circuit board solder connections. Even if the phenolic material inside the pot doesn’t crack, the whole thing can still get yanked off the vertical circuit board or lose electrical contact. If a number of knobs get bashed from above at the same time, the repair bill can be hefty.

Our VLZ3 Series mixers avoid these critical design errors.

Mackie’s first line of defense against external damage is right there, in the knobs. They’re designed to “ride” just thousandths of an inch from the metal surface of the mixer chassis. When a downward force arrives, it is transferred from knob to steel – instead of from knob to potentiometer.

Next, we employ a co-molded potentiometer that doesn’t use brittle material at critical mechanical points; if the mixer really gets whacked, our knobs withstand far more abuse than regular ones.

Finally, to eliminate force from being transferred to the circuit board, we use a braced, horizontal circuit board and shock-absorbing structure. The board is thick fiberglass and is connected at regular points to the chassis by metal stand-offs. Ultimately, extremely brutal knob impact is absorbed by broad pressure on a tough circuit board instead of acute stress at a few solder joints that weren’t meant to take physical abuse.

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Low bass is good. What’s lower than that isn’t. In the octaves below 75Hz lurk all sorts of low-frequency grunge. Caused by stage or room rumble, wind noise and mic thumps, it can muddy your sound on stage or in the studio, drain PA amplifier power, or worse, actually cause speaker damage.

1. Mackie 18dB/oct. Low Cut filter.
The Low Cut Filter on our VLZ3 compact mixers inserts a 75Hz low cut (high-pass) filter into the channel’s signal path (fig. 1). Why did we pick 75Hz? Well, the very finest microphones have a switch that lets you roll off their response below 75Hz, the very lowest fundamental frequency of the male voice. When you use this filter you notice that it doesn’t have any audible effect on the human voice... but it cuts off mic thumps and room rumble. Our Low Cut filter emulates this bandwidth. Beware of imitations.

2. Shallow Low Cut filters.
Don’t confuse our sharp 18dB/octave filter with the shallower 6dB or 12dB/octave “Low Cut” circuits found on some other compact mixers (fig. 2). Not only do they sacrifice audible bass, they don’t effectively cut subsonic rumble either. Figure 3 shows the difference between Theirs and Ours.

3. Theirs vs. Ours.
Mackie’s true Low Cut Filter is handy for minimizing traffic noise, popping, and other unwanted low frequency sounds. In fact we suggest you leave it permanently switched in on all of your mic channels. But don’t go away. There’s more...

4. Mackie Low EQ boost with Low Cut filter.
Put your Lo EQ back to work. Without our Low Cut Filter, using any amount of Lo EQ boost on mic channels is impossible – stage rumble and mic thumps become destructively exaggerated. Kick in the Low Cut Filter, and the audible bass range is boosted, but unwanted frequencies below 75Hz are chopped off. Now you can use Lo EQ without risk – and use midrange for, well... midrange!

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Noise happens. An incredibly high percentage of Mackie owners rave about how quiet our mixers are—even with all the channels cranked. We specifically set out to make our mixers that way, using premium components combined with our proprietary Very Low Impedance (VLZ3) circuitry.

VLZ3 circuitry wouldn’t even be necessary if we could record in outer space or some other place where it’s extremely cold. At absolute zero (-273° C), circuit components are noise-free because their atoms are completely at rest. However, at over 300º hotter (room temperature), the atoms in circuit components are agitated and constantly crash into each other. That causes small random voltage spikes that create thermal noise, or white noise (commonly referred to as hiss).

Mackie deals a crushing blow to thermal noise by making internal impedances as low as practical, at as many places as possible within the mixer. Very Low Impedance is achieved by scaling down resistor values by a factor of three or four, resulting in a corresponding reduction in thermal noise.

That alone isn’t the expensive part. What’s expensive is the high current necessary to achieve low impedance. You don’t have to be an electrical engineer to realize that high current requires lotsa power – whether it’s current for an amp, a motor, or a mixer circuit.

And that’s where our mixers excel. Our compact VLZ3 mixers have extremely robust internal power supplies. They deliver current levels that are impossible with wimpy external “wall warts.” Having enough power to do the job helps achieve Very Low impedance in critical circuit areas, which means astonishingly low noise levels – plus far less crosstalk between channels. The VLZ-3 power supplies also have a slide switch so the mixers can be set to the correct local Impact Resistance

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Not all mixer EQ sections are equal.

When you’re cooking up a mix, equalization is your seasoning. You can add new flavors or enhance existing ones. You can perk up a bland sound or mellow out a sharp one. If you want to serve up gourmet audio, you should use the freshest, most natural seasonings – uh, EQ – available. And just as with flavorings, you can ruin a mix with artificial or stale equalization. We promise to drop this dumb analogy if you agree to read the following section. It explains why Mackie is known for the quality of our EQ – and how our practical approach can improve your creative product.

The EQ sections of the VLZ3 mixers are improved designs, based on our original best selling VLZ and VLZ-PRO mixers. More operational amplifiers are used, and of higher quality, giving improved performance and musical feel, with increased separation of the EQ controls.

Figure headlines
1. Hi shelving EQ.
2. Lo shelving EQ.
3. Mid Peaking EQ.
4. Brand X Hi and Lo shelving increases the midrange too.
5. Mackie Hi and Lo shelving leaves the midrange alone.
6. Mackie’s wider Mid EQ vs. competitor’s narrower midrange EQ.

For starters, we put EQ in the right places. Along with designing mixers, Greg Mackie uses them, too. Over the years, he’s had his hands on just about every mixer made. One of his ongoing frustrations was where the EQ points were placed. They seemed to exist in some sort of time warp: “High EQ” was placed at 10kHz. That may have been high back in the Fifties, but today there is another octave of treble above 10k. Low EQ at 100Hz is equally outmoded – bass goes a lot lower than that nowadays. And midrange EQ seemed to be a refugee from some old radio studio board. Centering mid EQ at 1k might be great for making the spoken voice excruciatingly audible, but it has little to do with shaping the contours of music.
So Greg rewrote the book on mixer equalization... as only a practical musician could.

Hi Shelving EQ at 12kHz.
All of our mixers have Hi Shelving EQ at 12kHz (fig. 1) instead of 10kHz. A gentle 12k boost adds detail and sheen (without aural fatigue). Cutting at 12k can take a harsh edge off a sound without emasculating it. When you’re demoing mixers, EQ is one thing you can accurately test just by playing a CD into a couple of channels. Listen to how our Hi Shelving EQ delicately enhances the “tizzz” of cymbals, the delicate texture of strings and the breathiness of vocals. Then listen to the competition, many of whom still adhere to the old 10kHz thing.

Lo EQ with firm foundations.
Down there at the bottom, we have 80Hz Lo Shelving EQ instead of the tubby boom and bonk of 100Hz EQ. 80Hz gives you more control over deep, fundamental bass that’s produced by kick drums, floor toms, bass guitar, and low synth sounds. You can add depth and richness to male vocals, fatten up guitar sounds and create ear-stomping dance mixes.

Shelving EQ that isn’t off the shelf.
Shelving EQ gets its name from the plateau, or shelf, that’s created when you boost or cut it. The whole idea is to boost all of the frequencies above or below a certain point (in our case, 12kHz and 80Hz). But the shelving equalization found in some mixers gives you an unpleasant bonus in the midrange.

When you boost high or low shelving EQ on some mixers the midrange gets boosted, too (fig. 4). When you add high- or low-end, you also hear more midrange. So you boost the shelving EQ more. Which boosts the midrange more, etc. This is a vicious cycle.

Through careful circuit design and the use of more expensive components, Mackie VLZ3 mixers avoid Hi/Lo-Mid interaction problems (fig. 5). If you want high or low shelving EQ, that’s ALL you get. It’s a difference you’ll come to appreciate.

Midrange done right.
We located the fixed peaking Mid EQ on our 1202-VLZ3 and 1402-VLZ3 at 2.5kHz (fig. 3) because that’s a far more musical point than 1kHz. 2.5kHz interacts with and enhances the harmonics of the human voice and many instruments, including guitar, reeds, horns, and keyboards. Hear the difference for yourself: At 1k, a boost adds a gradual “hollowness,” as if the sounds were coming through a cardboard tube. As you continue to boost the 1k, the sound becomes strident and fatiguing. A 2.5k boost adds a brisk clarity of tone that enhances instead of hurts. Gently cutting 2.5kHz mid EQ de-emphasizes an instrument or vocal without radically altering its sound.

But there’s another reason why so many warranty cards have raves about Mackie midrange: it’s wider than many of our competitors’ mid EQs. That goes for the fixed EQ found on the 1202-VLZ3, 1402-VLZ3, and for the 1604-VLZ3 and 1642-VLZ3’s swept mid EQs.

That’s an important difference. Narrow EQ curves (like the green one in figure 6), creates an unnatural, intrusive effect that’s not good for much other than a drastic correction. The wider a midrange peak is, the more natural it sounds. The broad midrange EQ curve found on our compact mixers (blue area in fig. 6) is based on the circuitry in our acclaimed 8•Bus consoles. It lets you actually use mid EQ as a creative enhancement, instead of as an audio “bandage.” On the 1604-VLZ3 and 1642-VLZ3 you get swept mid EQ, which you can sweep as low as 100Hz and as high 8kHz, for amazingly accurate control over midrange frequencies.

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The dual-purpose Mute/Alt 3-4 bus is a Mackie feature exclusive. Naturally, when Greg Mackie was designing our first mixer, he had to include a mute switch for each channel. A mute switch works just like it sounds: it turns off the signal by “routing” it into oblivion.

“Gee, what a waste,” Greg reasoned. “Why not have the mute button route the signal somewhere else useful, like a separate stereo bus?” So the Mute/Alt 3-4 buttons on our 1202-VLZ3 and 1402-VLZ3 mixers really serve a dual function: muting (duh), and signal routing (oh!), where they act as your gateway to an extra stereo bus. Four buses on two-bus boards.

You simply connect the Alt 3-4 outputs to whatever destination you desire. For instance: When doing multitrack recording, you can use the Alt 3-4 outputs to feed your multitrack.

When doing live sound or mixdown, Alt 3-4 can be used for subgrouping. Simply assign multiple channels to the Alt 3-4 mix, engage it in the Source matrix, and the signals will appear at the Control Room and Phones outputs. If you want the Alt 3-4 signals to go back into the Main Mix, push the Assign to Main Mix button. Now, the Control Room/Phones knob becomes a master control all channels assigned to Alt 3-4. (Useful examples might include using the Alt 3-4 bus for single fader control of harmony vocals, horn sections, etc.)

It’s also great for previewing a channel before you bring it into the main mix, or creating a “mix minus” for broadcast production.

Mute/Alt 3-4 is a Mackie exclusive you’ll come to appreciate. Take your time and play around with it. It will be your friend. Honest.

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The Control Room/Phones matrix and level control is found on our 1202-VLZ3, 1402-VLZ3 and the larger 1604-VLZ3. (The 1642-VLZ3 has separate level controls for Control Room and Phones.) It’s a feature that adds major monitoring, mixdown and metering flexibility.

Via a bank of switches, you can select any combination of Main Mix, Tape in and Alt 3-4 signals for routing to the Control Room and Phones outputs and meters. It’s perfect for monitoring tape levels and creating custom headphone mixes, because now – by picking Main Mix as your source – you can send a big “house” level to the mains, and a quieter, more-listenable level to the control room feed or your headphones (so you don’t fry your ears).

Another example: With a CD player or tape deck hooked up to Tape in, you can play music between sets by selecting Tape and then Assign to Main Mix. This sends your new music source out into the mains without your having to tie up an additional stereo input.

Here’s another cool application. You can take your Alt 3-4 mix and, by assigning it to the Main Mix (in the Control Room/Phones section), effectively have a nice new submix to make mixing a horn section or drum set easier. Basically, the Control Room/Phones section is an incredibly handy feature that widens your options during both studio and live sound mixing. Show a photo of the Source Matrix area

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The first thing you have to do with any mixer is to adjust the individual input levels. As with calibrating a measurement tool or tuning an instrument, if you don’t get it right at this point, you’re probably headed for disaster. All mixers, no matter who manufactures them, operate between two “barriers” (fig. ?). At the top, they have a maximum input level above which the mixer overloads. And then there’s the noise floor, the residual background noise that is created by all electronics.

If you set a channel’s input too high, you avoid the noise floor, but you lose headroom (and risk overloading the mixer if the input signal gets too loud fig. ?) if you set the inputs too low, you have plenty of headroom, but the mixer is operating at such a low level that you’re into the noise floor (fig. ?). That results in a lot of hiss going to your recorder. The idea is to get the operating range to fit in between the noise floor and the overload range (fig. ?). Because level-setting is such an important procedure, we made it extra easy.

On the 1202-VLZ3, start by “zeroing out” the board (turn the channel Gain control counterclockwise and set the EQ controls at twelve o’clock). Press the Solo switch on the channel you wish to set. With a signal coming in, adjust the channel Gain until the right-hand meter lights up to 0db. If you need to add some EQ, you’ll need to repeat this step. Otherwise, move on to channel two, etc.

On the 1402-, 1604-, and 1642-VLZ3 models, “zero out” the board, then push in the Mode switch in the output section to set it to PFL (pre-fade listen). Press the Solo switch on the channel you wish to set. With a signal coming in, adjust the channel Gain until the “Level Set” LED comes on. Once again, if you need to add some EQ, you’ll need to repeat this step. Otherwise, repeat for the remaining channels.

That’s all there is to it. Thanks to our gain structure, you’ll get loads of headroom (the lighter blue part of the arrow (fig. ?) and a very low noise floor. SEE DRAWINGS ON PAGE 15, right column, Sound Reinforcement, Winter 2002

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Another place where noise can get into your mixer and sound system is through your inputs and outputs. A balanced system minimizes noise that can enter the mixer via external input cables. Especially in cases where very long lengths of cable are used, balanced connections offer excellent induced noise rejection. They are standard equipment on all of our mixers — although you can still use unbalanced cables, too.

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