Analog mixer instead of FW or USB audio interface?

Any reason NOT to use a mixer?

The biggest disadvantage is that all your channels will go into one GB track and you can't mix them after recording.

(That's not quite right - you can record each of the stereo tracks to a different GB track.)

With a interface you don't pan just send each chanel to it's own mono track. The same can be done with a mixer by panning a channel and sending to mono tracks.

The advantage to a interface is they are lighter, usually wont need a power supply, have better mic pre's compared with price points and do the A/D conversion on the interface and not in the computer.

If you don't need a analog mixer for other uses then a interface is probably the best way to go.

Do you mean if I go back and record again?

No, you can record them simultaneously, by picking channel 1 as the source for the one track and channel 2 for the other track.

tokyo progressive wrote:

I have been looking for a way to get sound into this imac (last year's top model with good sound chip). I was looking at firewire and USB, but since all I need in are my midi keyboard (M-Audio 88ES), and 2 XLR phantom mics, some over on Mac Jams suggested I try an analog mixer. That way I can plug it into line in and show up sort of premixed in GB, if you know what I mean.

Does this make sense?

NO!!!!

They're wrong.

For your application, an interface is vastly superior.

tokyo progressive wrote:

But if I am missing something, please help me understand.

The main difference is how you shuttle audio into the computer.

With an analog mixer, you're shoving all your audio into a tiny, consumer grade 1/8th audio jack and then into the electrical storm of a computer where it is vulnerable to distortion before a cheap, consumer grade converter only then turns it into the digital data used by garageband.

With an interface, you are performing the conversion outside of the computer, in a much more audio-friendly environment with what is likely a much better analog to digital converter. Your audio is fortified into a digital stream of 1's and 0's before it enters the computer. You've bypassed all the distortion your signal would otherwise experience through the computer's analog circuitry. It's a safer, more pristine way to shuttle audio into a computer while preserving as much of the original quality as possible.

I'd add that the other main difference 🙂 is as isteveus and christoph explain above. Using an interface, it's far easier to manage the translation of your analog tracks into garageband's virtual tracks.

there are good and bad mixers, and good and bad interfaces.

there are certainly great mixers and lousy interfaces and vice versas.

there are great cars and lousy bicycles, great bicycles and lousy cars.

another way to think about it:

an interface = a mixer + a/d converter