Recently, thanks to Bennett Prescott, I've been fortunate enough to be able to demo an APB-Dynasonics Pro Rack House mixer. I've had use of the mixer for about a month and I've just finished testing it out in my home, project studio. Although the mixer is of course designed for live sound reinforcement, I've found that it really has a wealth of features that makes it a very nice 'front end' to a multitrack recorder.
During several sessions of use in my home, it has served as a front end to a 16 I/O MOTU DP6 system, with the direct outs of the Pro Rack House feeding the line level inputs of two HD 896 interfaces. For playback/monitoring, I used the first two stereo input channels, #13 and #14, to bring back a separate stereo submix from each of the MOTU interfaces. This arrangement worked out just fine, with 12 mics utilizing channels #1 through #12, to capture a drumkit in my 'live room,' and still four additional preamps available in channels #15 and 16. The first of these I used in mono for an electric bass, which was patched directly to Ch #15's line in, and the other, I used for a stereo keyboard that happened to have balanced, line level outs. Finally, I used Auxes 5 and 6 to feed a stereo cue mix.
It's really a wonderful little console, and though I do wish it had some features that a studio-targeted recording console would have, the sound quality really is exceptional. The preamps always provided a very full, smooth, and yet punchy sound, which I really enjoyed. One of my goals was to test the usefulness of the board's EQ during tracking drums in particular, and since the board is set up (from the factory) with the direct outs pre-EQ, I decided to send channels #1 through 4 to the 4 mono groups, which have their own set of direct outs. These channels carried signals from both two kick mics (an AKG C4000b inside, and an SM57 on the attack head), and two snare mics (SM57s on both snare top and bottom). I toggled the EQ 'on' for channels 1-4 and got nice results doing things like adding a bit more low end to the inside of kick mic - via the fixed low freq band - and also adding both some 'snap' to the kick and presence to the top of the snare via the sweepable hi-mid bands. I also was able to get rid of some unnecessary low end on both the kick's attack head mic, and the snare's bottom head mic, by using the sweepable hi pass filter... very nice sounding EQ!
One weekend, with my brother visiting, I also had a chance to record both a scratch lead vocal and an electric guitar track for a new song of his. It's a rough track, but I recorded everything through the APB pres. (I will provide a link) By the way, since I positioned the APB Pro Rack House on the desk in front of me in the control room, it was very easy to re-patch whenever I needed to free up a channel or two to record something new. We micd up my bro's electric guitar cabinet with a Rode NTK tube mic, having also split the signal so I could capture a clean DI track simultaneously, and then afterwards used the same tube mic to track his vocal. My brother happens to have a very dynamic voice and yet not once did he overload the console's preamp. I did not have to be overly cautious in setting the preamp gain, I got a healthy level, and the pre still had plenty of headroom. We just got excellent results without any hassle!
One slight issue for me has been the built in fan that runs constantly whenever the Pro Rack House is on. Although it's quiet, after a few hours in the control room, it did start to be a bit much. In my control room (about 10' x 13'), I think this only posed a problem because of the pre-existing noise - that caused by a Mac Pro computer. Anyway, I decided to send an email/query to APB about the fan and whether it could be disabled, and I received a very quick and helpful response from John Petrucelli of APB. He let me know that a switch could be added to allow the fan to be manually switched off and on, as needed. Although he didn't recommend using the console with the fan off all the time, he did suggest that the controlled room temperature of a studio/control room should allow fan-less use of the Pro Rack House without any problems! That modification, combined with another - setting the console's direct outs to tap signals post-EQ, which is a modification offered at the APB factory - (I think) will make the Pro Rack House a perfect match for small, home and project studios.
Please feel free to ask questions. It's been a total pleasure working with this console!