I'm almost certainly going to order a Marenius MM3100 3 channel ENG mixer. The marenius has 3 balanced XLR inputs and one XLR out. It has a tone generator, head phone amp, LED VU, -30 db attentuation with a master gain control.It's both battery and AC powered and has 18 volt phantom as standard. It cleans your windows, walls and woodwork, it cleans upstairs , down stairs and around the stairs. The unit seems fairly robust and is $340 at markertek

I have 3 questions

There is an optional board that will give a full 48 phantom for $60. I don't need it now , but I have a history of saying "naaaaah' then kicking myself squarley in the reproductive gear after the fact.

Will I require a pad to more safely interface this to my VX2000.

The output is balanced. Is it ok to connect directly to the VX2K or should I use an impedance matching xfmr?

I'd like to do this right. i'm getting the portabrace case made specificall for the unit as well. The closest to this unit is the sure and mix pre units at double the money.

http://www.marenius.se/indexeng.htm

click on: products/audio, then MM3100

Any help would be humongously appreciated.

Beas

Isn't your Beachtek good enough? :)

GEt the 48 volt Phantom power. Someday you will probably want it. I think I recall that some microphones really only want 48 V phantom anyway.

I doubt if you will need a pad. Put the 2000 in line-in mode.

You don't need to use a balancing setup although somewhere down the road, you may forget and hook into something that will cause problems. More hum and noise than damage. But if you did short the output to ground, it might damage the mixer. The company can tell you if this will cause problems or not.

If you have a beachtek, that should suffice as they have tranformer inputs.

Doubt if you need to pad the input to the 2000. Try the input through your Beachtek first.

Looks like a nice unit. Please let us know how you like it.

I'm trying to reduce weight on the camera. If the mixer is connected the beach sure won't be.

Frank
I have 3 mics and they have 3 different levels. Rather than attenuate them all down to the lowest, I'd rather increase the output. I also want a new toy.

Why you might ask. Recently a very good buddy died of cancer. The guy worked for 48 years and was diagnosed with cancer 3 years ago. He worked and fought the cancer for 3 years. Two months ago , when he could barely walk or breath, he booked off. He lived 2 months in agony and died.

In short I'm 58 with heart problems. Pure and simple I want and I'll buy what I want and I'll buy it now , when I can enjoy it. N'uff said :)

No offence intended , that's just the way it is.

I forgot about all those mics. The inside of your house must look like a studio.

This field mixer looks nice but is probably expensive.?

If you were shooting on a fixed rig, then I'd suggest a Mackie 1202 VLZpro. Gives you more that this field mixed but is not as small.

Regards

P

"The inside of your house must look like a studio"

The wife complains about it constantly, it's her hobby i think.