This is very difficult question to answer, maybe some dealer who has got a lot of different mixers in stock, and tried all of them, might have an opinion on the subject that would be the closest to the truth. All of us who don’t run professional business (and even some who do!) use low end gear and get good results (or at least as good as our audio engineering capabilities permit). If I had to chose between Zoom LiveTrack and Behringer UFX1604 i’d go for Behringer - it is cheaper, it is longer around and generally receives good reviews, and it is known to work with Linux without additional steps (plug&play). Sound differences are probably marginal. Just pick a dealer who offers the longest warranty and handle with care. This is just my opinion, it is very difficult to make decisions for someone else so do some more research.
It is a standard line on most professional riders that ‘No Mackie, No Behringer, No Presonus’ actually. A brief summary of why:
Mackie: Single Board construction is the norm, if something fails there is no chance for repair and little chance to work around. Mackie in the 1980s or so was known for good reliability, that hasn’t really been the same since then though. It isn’t that you can’t get a decent usable sound, it is that there have been enough failures that people are shy about them especially given the lack of repairability. Add on to this that in the mixer cases especially they are being left behind a bit in functionality.
Behringer: Until the X32 line came out the standard was ‘If you buy one, buy two and consider it disposable’ In fact this still applies to many of their products, failures weren’t just common, they were expected. Early products would be direct ripoffs of other existing products from notable manufacturers, including Mackie IIRC, as in the products were purchased by behringer to scan the circuit and recreate it nearly exactly. Add on to this piss poor audio quality in many of their products, and most people didn’t ever want to touch them. Since purchasing Midas/KT/Turbosound/etc. they have released some good products, most notably the X32/M32 line, though I know some people using the XAir(And Midas equivalent) line I haven’t seen them in common usage enough to comment. The X32/M32 was a standout product from them, but because of their deserved reputation for poor quality and very shady business practices, that ‘standout’ product from them really is about the same as everything else out there, which was amazing at the time from Behringer. It did however drive the entire cost of the market down as they did it cheaper than most at the time.
Presonus: The hardware UI of their mixers as mentioned is awful, they have some stability problems in their firmware, and questionable choices about scene recall in the first several generations made them useless for live audio past the very basic stage where scene recall wasn’t used along with the lack of motorized faders in many of their mixers meant they were treated as analog mixers with less stability, not a good combination. Their ACP88 was great at the time, but as time goes on I see more and more stability problems from them across their lines to the point of I don’t use them much if at all these days and they are steered away from in the ‘professional’ world.
SeabladeThat’s awesome documentation, thanks! That’s what I remember of the 80s (90s really) as well: Mackie was the shit and Behringer was crap. Oddly, it seems the tables are somehow turning now.
I wish bands would put “please X” instead of “no Y”, then we’d have something to recommend here… 
Those who say “no Mackie”, don’t they say what they want instead?
I haven’t heard trash talk against Zoom or Mee Audio yet, for the record…
Not really turning as much as equalizing slowly, both of them considered ‘low tier’ in my world.
They do, but most of the ones i deal with I doubt you want to spend the money on what they tend to request as those consoles start in the 5 figure range:) Mackie and Behringer are specifically called out in riders as unacceptable along with others, but it is also an indication that they want about a certain quality level that those brands are considered a part of.
Can’t comment on Mee Audio as I never see them in my world. Zoom you wouldn’t see in my world ever, but for your purpose may not be horrible I suppose. You also have options like the Tascam Mixer, but I can’t speak to Linux compatibility in either case personally, which is why I have tended to stay out of this. I know a lot about mixers, but those that have audio interfaces built in I can’t speak much about Linux compatibility right now sadly.
SeabladeSo now that you know a bit more, I think you need to rearticulate your goals, because in the beginning you were looking for a mixer that could record direct into a Linux computer and then later you said you definitely don’t want to be recording directly into a computer. Clarifying that point will make a difference. If you’re in a studio, recording direct into a computer is the most efficient, but if you’re going to be recording in “field locations” like a living room or at gigs, then recording into a computer isn’t always necessary or even a good idea especially if you’re recording on a noisy laptop with its fan running and you need to be in the same room as the laptop. If you won’t be recording into a computer, you don’t need to worry about Linux compatibility at all. You just need a mixer/recorder that can help you mix your band for its live practices while also recording individual channels pre-fader and pre-effects.
You also need to omit mixers that only record the stereo mix post-fader, because what sounds good in the room or at a gig rarely sounds good in your stereo mix recording especially if you’re using drums and if you are putting the mics for electric guitars/bass in front of their amplifiers.
On the other hand, a mixer with a class-compliant interface that will record into your laptop might be cheaper than some of the mixers that offer to record to an SSD or SD card. And it sounds like you already have a laptop and Ardour.
Once you clearly articulate what you want and need now, think ahead to what you might need for the future; you don’t want to invest in something now that turns out to be not what you need in a few years.
Be realistic about what’s likely. Do you want to build a home studio? Or do you want to keep doing what you’re doing? All those factors will play into your decision.
I said that? What I originally said was that I only wanted to record on a (Linux) computer, but then I said I was open to the idea of recording directly on the hardware device because I found the idea interesting after all.
I didn’t consider that to be a real option, to be honest: I like simple machines that do one thing, so the idea of having recording in the mixer seems totally backwards to me. But then maybe that’s an expected feature if you get USB output anyways…
I have at least one laptop to spare, and I feel confident I’ll be able to setup the JACK/Ardour chain when the rubber meets the road. 
Do you want to build a home studio?
Not really, not yet. The setup is a basement where I practice with a band. Nothing serious, far, very far from being a studio in any shape or form. But I like the idea of being able to do some home recording as well in the future. But I know what I’m getting into now: I’m not setting up a pro or even home studio. I just want a mixer that I can plug into something.
Thanks for all the advice anyone, it’s been very useful and helped a lot in clarifying everything. No easy answers of course, but I feel I can go ahead with something. I will report back here my findings when I got them of course…
A bit late in here but … you really might want to consider a Soundcraft Ui-24. It has almost no hardware controls but because good faders and knobs are expensive, this unit is quite inexpensive. The other advantage is: No one will touch the gain knobs between rehersals. To control it, you can use any PC, Tablet or Smartphone: The interface is a HTML5 website that you can try out right here: https://www.soundcraft.com/ui24-software-demo/mixer.html.
It has 20 mic inputs, 10 XLR outputs, if you need more, connect another unit. Each Channel has the usual Channelstrip with EQ, Comp, Gate, De-Esser. Multitrack recordings are possible directly to a USB drive or via PC as a multitrack audio interface.
The downside IMHO is the Effects section which is very basic.
Agreed about the Soundcraft, but a word of warning is to avoid the smaller and earlier versions of this (the Soundcraft Ui 12 and Ui 16). Both of those units have far inferior preamps to those in the Ui 24, but more importantly they have a lot of connectivity problems and are extremely unreliable. I made the mistake of buying a UI 12 a few years ago for use as a live sound mixer and had more than a few white-knuckle moments where I’d lose control of the mix for minutes at a time in concerts, with no ability to mute, control feedback, mix, etc. The Ui 24 is completely redesigned and all reports indicate it is much more reliable and better all around.
Yes, I can confirm all of that. Plus the 12 and 16 don’t offer any multitrack capabilities.
Hi,
I had a Presonus 1818VSL and used it for 3 years with no issues, then wanted more channels and got a Presonus StudioLive AR-16, I’ve had it for a year, recorded multiple projects with it and I’ve had no problems at all, the Pre’s are very quiet, you can stream bluetooth through it so very handy to learn new songs off your phone and the USB Multitrack capabilities work perfectly under Linux.
Presonus, Mackie, Soundcraft, Behringer et al are all competing with each other in a tight marketplace with the cheapest components they can source so they are probably all somewhat risky as far as quality goes at the ‘prosumer’ level… I have a Mackie board for live sound that’s 2 years old and the trim pots became noisy after 3 months and I also drank the kool aid that Mackie was king of the hill… After that experience for me the Presonus has been a better product…YMMV
That’s the beauty of those remote controlled Mixers: Analog signal paths are expensive or noisy and unreliable. DSP power is cheap. So without all the knobs and faders, these units reduce the analog signal path to a preamp and there’s simply no trim pots to become noisy. The downside is of course that there are none to touch and turn either, you need to do that via a tablet or PC.
Soundcraft are not the only ones with wifi mixers, of course. Their unique advantage is that they’re controlled via a HTML5 Website and not with an app that doesn’t run on Linux. They will work for the forseeable future with any device with a web browser.
For future reference, I ended up buying a Soundcraft EFX8.
The thing works pretty well. Its construction feels a bit shoddy, but so far so good. I like how it has inserts on all lines and good routing. With proper hardware on the computer side, I could use this as a mixed four-track recorder, or a pre-fade 8-track record, which is fine.
So far I’ve got a crap soundcard so it’s only a mono recorder, but it does its job (which is to let me scream into speakers) well enough (that is, until COVID-19 struck and destroyed our chance to jam together in a reasonable way…)
Thanks for everyone who contributed here, and sorry for pinging you all, but i thought it was a good idea to explain what happened in the end.
The link you posted is dead.
i fixed it, thanks! no idea what happened there.
I just got a Soundcraft Signature 12 MTK, it has a class compliant USB interface with 14ins/12outs that all work in GNU/Linux. The ins always capture from the inputs, but there is also an option to return the USB channels individually from the PC back into the channel strip, by individual buttons on the desk, this means you can use the EQ/FX on the desk and capture the master (via channels 13/14 that are always routed this way). So Ardour can function as a set of inserts on channels 1-12 and you can mix on the desk… or you can route all channels into Ardour and mix in Ardour, then return a stereo mix back to the desk to play back into any channel! This set up is something I’ve wanted for a while, and now I can sell all my other redundant equipment, as the mixer acts as preamps, interface, outboard gear and router for my amp.
I’ve had my eye on one too. Now that I know they work well, it might be my next purchase! Incidentally, is the routing diagram from QJackCtl? I’ve wondered for a while why the various repos only have v0.5.1 (over two years old!) when v0.6.2 is on the dev’s website with goodies like that beautiful graph/routing window.
Yes it’s from qjackctl.
I have a tip for this mixer: Use the group 1-2 outs to drive your main amplifier because you can set the level lower, but set the master fader on 0dB, this way when you capture from channels 13/14 you get a unity levelled mix on the summing bus and can record it directly. Also the headphone mix is affected by the master fader so you need to do this to get independent headphone level from the group outs driving your main speakers.
Did you compile from the source or are you running a bleeding-edge distro? It seems that Debian Sid has the latest offering but MXLinux 19 is buster so no such luck.
Also, thanks for the tip on mixer routing. The 12 MTK looks like a stellar product.
Just on Fedora 30, quite old now… Yeah I’m really happy with this mixer, I can see it will serve me well, either in standalone mode jamming, or recording, or both…
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