Peavey MK-IV (was Yamaha) mixer

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is this board any good?

Below is my original post. Update: My friend checked out the board and my memory is worse than I thought. It's a Peavey MK-IV mixing board. I don't know where I got the idea that it was a Yamaha. Anyhow, I now know that there are two sends (one pre, one post) so my only remaining question is how the pres are on this... decent? bad? good?

I'm looking for a little bit of information on a Yamaha mixer. Unfortunately I do not have the mixer in front of me at the moment, nor do I have the model number... but I'm just looking for some general information.

Here's the info that I <i>do</i> have:

- A band I was in collectively bought this mixer used in the mid 1990s to use for live sound at our shows.

- We were told it was used as the monitor board for the Cranberries on tour (I cannot not verify this, but it's in a nice road case).

- It's 24 channels/4 buss (a few of the channels are bad, scratchy etc. but most still work)

- The knobs are brown and/or beige (not various colors I've seen when I search for yamaha boards).

- It's big and heavy in the road case. It's maybe 4' x 2' (very rough estimation).


Basically, I'm trying to determine two things:

A) are there direct outs on the channels?
B) are the preamps decent?

The last time I used it was probably four or five years ago... Used it as means of getting all the drum mics down to one track on my tascam 424. I <i>think</i> it sounded decent, but I had much to learn in judging sound (and still do).

It's currently sitting in the basement of a friend's parents and neither of us are able to get to it to check it out. I might be using it in January for some drum work.

Thanks!

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bump

[blakbeltjonez]

they are unremarkable, more than likely. at one point, Peavey consoles were designed by some ex-employees from Soundcraft (think it was the Mark VIII?) but even if it were, the pre's would be your standard darlington pair transistor, loads of TL072/74/etc. op amps. not to say that it would be *bad*, per se.... but it's not going to be a discrete design with input/output transformers, inductor based EQ and all that mess that people tend to get all hot and bothered about.

the bigger issue would be, how much work would the board need to get it up to snuff for recording if you need something better than you have now? how much money and effort to move it down to where you are now? if it's been sitting a while, it'll likely have dirty scratchy pots and whatever issues it had before it was stored away. if the board was in decent shape it could probably give you a perfectly acceptable recording if it met your needs (number of inputs, fx sends, sub groups and other routing, etc.). i wouldn't go pick it up the day before you had to record and expect to jump right into your session, though.

if you are really looking for something clean and quiet and flexible and minus the headaches of an old console you'd be better off getting one of those little Mackie Onyx boards or an Allen & Heath, or if you're OK with older and used and a bit noisier, an old Soundcraft or Soundtracs Topaz board (i like the old Soundcrafts myself, although properly star grounding all the modules is something that needs to be done). if you have to put any significant money into the Mark IV (say, more than $100-200 or so) i would move on - sell it on craigslist to someone that needs a bare bones working man's live console for a couple of hundred dollars and use that money towards getting something decent. don't beat yourself up trying to restore mediocre "vintage" gear.

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Thanks, this is pretty much the info I was looking for. At the moment I go without a board, just using some outboard pres that seem to do the job quite all right. I had just toyed with the idea of throwing this thing in the mix to have some options but I might hold off on that. The thing hasn't been used in a few years and last time I had it out, a few channels were unuseable. Thanks for your help!