Mackie CR-1604

This is an article culled from archive material, circa 1997.

The CR-1604 is a 16-channel, 4-bus mic/line mixer of high build and audio quality. My personal theory is that Greg Mackie developed and shipped this desk to service that sector of the market identified by Alesis with their 1622 monolithic mixer, a truly abysmal piece of hardware.

The CR-1604 is innovative compared with conventional 16:2 mixers in that the per-channel audio muting actually switches the audio to a second stereo bus. Other features include a rotatable jack-pod which can be connected in several orientations (some of which, including the illustrated configuration, require the additional rotopod kit) and high-quality mic inputs on the first eight channels. (There is a kit to provide the rest of the channels with mic inputs.) The mixer is rackmountable in various orientations, and can be mounted flush (useful for top-mounting across a Gearhead/CP Cases Eurorack case).

The mixer is designed with unity gain; every level control (including the fader channels) has a centre-detent at unity. There is a generous total of seven mono sends per channel: each channel can switch between the monitor (prefade) or send 1, and between sends 3+4 or 5+6. There are four stereo returns.

The CR-1604 is partially MIDI-automatable; the optional OTTOMIX kit (an internal board plus external 1U rackmount unit) provides channel level, mute, and some aux level control.

The main drawback of the mixer is the weak EQ section: each channel features high, mid and low EQ only, with no sweep. The EQ has a clean, American sound, compared with the rich EQ generally found on British desks.

Weak EQ aside, I would recommend the Mackie as a high-quality 16-channel mixer. The automation is only partial, which is a drawback, and expensive (for the same price, one could pick up a second-hand Yamaha DMP7) but the Mackie quality is legendary. The four-bus, seven-send architecture is simple and versatile, and as a rackmount the mixer is very compact (although those in need of more channels in a rackmount might look at the LM-3204 instead).