PreSonus StudioLive 16.4.2 Digital Mixer  

Features, hmmm.  Sounds great.  A boatload of built in compressors, limiters, parametric and graphic eq's delays and verbs and other effects all in a compact and affordable package.  The ability for the soundman to run the mix wirelessly with an iPad and for musicians to tailor their own monitor mix with an iPad, iPhone or iPod touch.  This board replaces just about all outboard gear, an

Aviom system and does it for an incredible price.  Enough features for you?  It was for me!

I only gave it a 9 because the first board I got had problems.  Musicians Friend replaced it quickly and cheerfully with no additional cost...WINNING.  I have been using a 24.4.2 StudioLive board at my church for almost 2 years and it has worked like a charm.  Sounds MUCH better and quieter than the analog Midas board (which new cost over $6,000).  To be fair, a lot of that had to do with the fact that with the StudioLive you don't need to connect the board to EQ's, compressors, etc. prior to the FOH and monitors.  But still, it sounds fantastic.  The ability to operate it wirelessly via iStuff and to record multitrack audio digitally at the same time is ridonkulous.  I've owned Presonus stuff before, and they make really good stuff at an excellent price point.

IMHO, there is NO better value in digital boards on the market today....assuming that you already have a laptop, iPhone, iPad & router already.  Even without that stuff it blows away anything in its price point.  The sound is great.  The quality of the effects are great.  The preamps are great.  The user-friendliness of the layout is great.  It does NOT have motorized sliders, which probably knocks $5,000 off of the price tag...fine with me.  It DOES save me a huge amount of time with the ability to save a bunch of master settings (scenes) for different rooms and applications.  The presets for each channel (and the user-set presets) are very useful.  The ability to load presets for each channel, aux and submix is VERY useful. 

If you are in the market for a digital board and don't need or want to spend the money for the "industry standard" pro sound system digital boards that cost around $10K look hard at these Presonus boards.  Go to YouTube and seach for StudioLive, search for "Presonus Universal Remote", search for "Presonus StudioLive Remote with iPad" and "Presonus Qmix" in addition to checking out the stuff from the www.presonus.com site.  You will be impressed.  Here's one important note:  I have used Windows based PC's (both XP and Win7) with Presonus stuff and Apple products with Presonus stuff.  The Apple world works more reliably.  When in the PC world I'd have to worry about getting a certain kind of firewire card, driver issues, having things work until there was a software or firmware update and then wrestle with things again, have some "gremlins" from time to time.  I eventually started using a Macbook and things just plain worked better and easier.  (Please note I am NOT an Apple "fanboy"; I just want things to work.)  It seems to me that the Presonus guys work well in the Apple OS world...especially if it is NOT a brand new OS.  Poke around in the knowlegebase on the Presonus site and you'll see what I mean.  Now that I am using a MacBook, iPad, iPhone and the Linksys E3200 router LIFE IS GOOD!  I can do stuff that would cost tens of thousands of dollars more to do with other gear.  No kidding!!!!

I was looking for a mixer that could meet two primary needs:

1. Be a great mixer for integrating with my computer, and
   
2. Also be used for live performance and rehearsing
   

The 16.4.2 gives me everything I need to solve those two functions.  Let's start with where I am coming from.  I've been using traditional analog mixers for more than 20 years and had dabbled in computer recording using external USB or Firewire interfaces.  My 16 channel, 15 year old analog mixer was getting noisy and unreliable.  I did some basic maintenance on it, it worked OK for a while ...   To make a long story short, I was very comfortable with traditional, analog mixer layouts.

When I went to digital, I wanted something that had great sound and a familiar feel.  The "Fat Channel" concept of the Presonus is giving me the best of both digital functionality and familiarity with an analog mixer.  I select a channel, dial in the EQ, apply compression or gates where needed and move to the next channel.  I can also assign a channel to up to four subgroups which allows me to send specific channels to monitor mixes.  My drummer, who also sings, loves it because it puts the vocal mix up in his monitor.  Since I am not a recording engineer (I am a guitar and bass player), I love the "auto" mode on the channel compression.  My rehearsal room was extremely live and went more live when we replaced the carpeting with hardwood floors.  We were able to control feedback easily with the PreSonus.

Now, about the computing side of this.  Every physical move you make on the board is reflected in the software!  Additionally, unlike some other USB/Firewire mixers that I saw, this one sends each channel/mains/etc as descrete inputs to your DAW; -- others only sent the main mix! 

Finally, PreSonus managed to fit a 16 channel mixer into a rack-mountable width! (thanks to the Fat Channel layout!).  I've got my power amps and a couple of other critical pieces of rack gear mounted on the same tilt-back rack with the mixer, so cabling is easy and clean.  

I've only had this puppy for several weeks, but so far, so good.  The unit is solid, the pot's smooth, and the sliders move nearly effortlessly.

What I really wanted was to get a board like the 16.4.2 at the same price, but with motorized faders.  OK, call me a dreamer  

A great mix of live and recording features that will do everything I need. 

I purchased a 24.4.2 version of this board for my church a couple of years ago.  Once Presonus came out with the ability to mix remotely with an iPad for FOH and use iPhones (or iPads or iPod Touch) to control each individual monitor mix, in essence a complete wireless Aviom system, I had to buy one for myself.  The board sounds great just as a board, and has all the built in stuff you would expect from a digital board.  The "Fat Channel" is intuitive, and there is very little learning curve from that of an analog board.  The built-in EQ's & effects sound great, the ability to save "scenes" for different uses, pre-set channel and aux settings (including EQ) are all great tools.  Oh yeah, multi-track recording too...although the max quality is 48K 32 bit...OK for my purposes though I do prefer 96K.  Go to You Tube and check out the various videos describing the iPad apps studiolive remote and qmix to be totally blown away by what this board can do.  They do firmware and software updates from time to time which have addressed whatever shortcomings I thought that the system had a couple of years ago.  As you can tell, I am an avid fan of these boards.

It sounded noticably clearer and quiter than a Midas board at my church or a Mackie Onyx for my personal use.

Can I give it an 11?  Does stuff you'd spend tens of thousands of dollars more for elsewhere.  THE ONLY downside is that they do not yet have the ability to open saved scenes from other digital board makers that have been saved via USB.  I would not be surprised to see this in the future.

The only thing I'd add is that the free software and free apps really round things out.  Once you buy one of these puppies and go to the Presonus website you are good to go with multi-track recording (with the bare bones Capture or the more full featured free version of Studio One) the computer control & iStuff apps.  No additional cost of buying more software is required, although I do use a different DAW for mixdown.  Just my personal preference.

It's great for us.  We can no record every show.  It’s pretty darn easy to use.  6 aux buses make monitoring way better, the ipad ap works easy for our drummer to manage his monitor mix, and others with (the only other ipad we have) the rest.  So I'm happy.  Would be nice if the audio interface was 96khz.  The digital sounds good, not as good as my Yamaha analog, but way more flexibility etc.  The 32 band eq's per each aux and both left and right up front is great, wonderful useful. 

But it aint cheap, now that the VSL 1616 is out there, that and a presouns adat preamp gets you 16 channels you can mix on your laptop/ipad.  You don't get the 4 band per channel eq, or the graphic eqs. and you are counting on your laptop staying up the entire show, but that rig would be half the coin. 

I haven't tried the VSL's and I won't cause I own this.  You will never go over the 16 channels on the VSL-USB, so if you want to expand Firewire is the only way to go right now.

So when I forget about what it cost, and after I lug it in: I love my SL 16.4.2.

All works, noting broke.  The sliders felt cheap at first, but now I don't think about it.

Still a good value compare to oather didgi mixxers with the feature, but if the VSL 1616+ADAT preams works as advertised, that would be almost the same function ofr half the money

I'm happy with it, 96khz and some routing options on the inserts and the direct outs would have put it over the top.  I would like to only use one channel to record dry and yet here my guitar processor, so if the firewire in for a channel would let me by pass the insert, but hear it to mix, that would be a 10

We use this system strictly for on-stage monitoring.  We all use Shure PSM 900 in-ears and are able to have 6 individual mixes!!!  FOH guys love us!  This board does everything and has all you need packed right in.  Fat channel is fantastic.  EXTREMELY user friendly.  If there is a downside, the effects are somewhat limited. Great value........a little on the pricey side but worth it!