NAD: Mackie ShowBox: Final thoughts - keeping it!

[Methos1979]

Initial thoughts: The Mackie ShowBox arrived this afternoon and I promptly began the process of putting it through its paces. Please note that these are my very early thoughts having just began the process. I have not even read the manual but rather just started playing around with things to see if I could figure it out. I find this is a good way to test how intuitive a system is: Plug things in, turn it on and see if you can get a good sound and figure out the feature set without a manual. First up is size - it's a lot bigger than I thought it would be, almost twice the size of the Yamaha Stagepas 200BTR. That said, it's also about 5 or so pounds lighter than the Stagepas. There's a nice molded handle on the top and flat rubber pads on the bottom and the on monitor wedge bottom. The two XLR inputs are not combo inputs. This is not a big deal to me but the 4 main inputs on the Stagepas are all combo inputs so I'd give that one to the Yamaha. Also, no phantom power. That's another one for the Stagepas.

There are two large, green LED lights on the front when you power up. They don't look bad but I can see where some would not like that. The good news is that you can turn those off on the back of the main unit. There's a couple more buttons on the back with features like Indoor/Outdoor and PA/Amplifier. I played around with both and in all honesty I could not hear much of a difference in my early tests. I'll have to read up on that in the manual later tonight. There is also a feedback eliminator button on the back which does work great. It's an automated thing though. You leave it on and it 'hunts down' feedback frequencies on the fly and eliminates them. This has the effect of dampening down certain tonal frequencies which some may not like. The biggest problem I have with this is that this button is not on the removeable mixer pad where (in my opinion, at least) it most certainly should be.

Onto the the star of the show - that removable mixer pad. It's awesome having those controls at my fingertips when I'm trying to dial in good starting tone. And it's refreshing to not have to try to figure out a complicated app with a bunch of layers of screens like you have to on most apps (certainly so on my Stagepas and EV30M apps). I found the layout to be attractive and very intuitive. One neat feature is the 'auto gain' where you hold the volume button down for a few seconds and strum the guitar or sing into a mic and it finds the perfect amount of gain. You can also set the gain manually, of course. There are 5 buttons at the top and you select which channel you want to manipulate and then use the controls to set gain, volume, EQ (low, mid, high), effects (x2), and compression. There's also a built in tuner that works slick, looper controls, headphone volume, a record button (to record your shows to an SD card - slick!) and a master volume and mute switch which I know a lot of people are going to like.

How does it sound? I was able to dial in the two vocal channels pretty darn fast and easy. The system does not like the inexpensive wireless mic units we use. They are noisy with a bit of hiss. To be fair, I get the same thing on the Stagepas. I only use the wireless for my wife anyway since I'm anchored to a mic stand. In a gig space you likely wouldn't hear it at all. The guitar on the other hand was a much different story. I had a very hard time dialing in a great sound with any of my guitars including my Cole Clark which typically sounds great through everything. Part of this is being spoiled with the outstanding EV30M which gives great guitar tone. I've been spoiled by that for sure. That said, I was able to get a decent tone after playing around with things for an hour and the tone is on par with the Stagepas. There are plethora of onboard effects and I have to say they are pretty awful compared to most. We only use a tiny bit of reverb anyway but I was definitely not impressed.

The bright green cable that connects the mixer to the amp is obnoxiously bright but that doesn't bother me like it seems to both many. But I also use colored cables for most of my other gear - blue for guitar, red for foot pedal and tweed for my mic. The quality of the cable is excellent. The rest of the system as a whole is decent. It's not heavy duty like the Stagepas and some might think it's a little too 'plasticy' but at this price point it's on par with most everything else I've owned. It's very similar is size, shape and overall look and feel to the JBL Eon One Compact I had some time back. It does get VERY loud. One interesting thing I noted was this is the first system that actually sounded better on the floor in the wedge monitor position. Previous amps of this size and type (Bose S1, JBL Compact, and Stagepas 200BTR) all sounded much better up off the ground on a pole. This is good because this is a system I would basically much prefer to use on the ground and not need to schlep a pole around.

That's about it for now off the top of my head. I'll be spending some more time tomorrow after I read the manual and I'll update my comments as I learn more about the unit. I ordered the bag and the two button footswitch (to use with the looper) but those are backordered and not shipping yet.

Update - day two: Okay, so another several hours playing around with this system. I managed to get a much better guitar tone today. Part of the issue was I'd just changed the strings on the X7 yesterday and put on some Monel strings which sound awful on that guitar. So this morning after an initial play though the ShowBox I changed the strings over to some GHS Vintage Bronze which are great strings - much better. I then spent some time really dialing in the tone including going through nearly every onboard effect they offer. There's a lot of stuff that I would never use, stuff more for electric guitar players. In the end I found the best effects for tone were a touch of fast delay and and touch of small chorus. On the vocals I have a touch of small plate reverb. A bit of the 'problem' with this unit is that they seemed to try to cram it full of a little bit of everything for everyone as opposed to just the best things for strictly acoustic duo type performers.

The next thing I put to the test was recording with the (not supplied) micro SD card. This works great with the caveat that it's VERY basic. You'll need to format the card before you install but once that is done the record button on the detachable mixer turns green and you are good to go. Just press the button and the green light will flash slowly and recording will begin. When done just press the record button again and it will stop recording and the light turns solid. Files are stored as WAV files with a very basic name like REC_001.WAV. Unfortunately, there is no way to play these files back on the ShowBox. You must remove the card and put into a computer (or something that reads micro SD cards) and then play through that. The good news is that the recording sounded GREAT! I'm really looking forward to using this at our next show just so I can record the whole show and listen back later. This is definitely a nice feature that I think many would find useful. Plus one for the ShowBox.

I spent more time looking over the unit as a whole with regard to layout and general construction quality. Build quality is quite good with a very solid feel to the plastic outer shell. The 'grill' on the front feels well made and solid and the little Mackie 'stickman' logo can be rotated for use in either the pole or floor monitor wedge position. The detachable mixer is very lightweight and plastic-y feeling but it still feels and looks great. The one thing that does appear to be a little cheaply made is the mixer holder for putting on a stand. It's a molded 'block' but not solid if that makes sense. Then there is the way the mixer attaches which is just two slots that fit into two tabs and the it's held down by gravity. So while it's more than stable enough when you're pressing buttons and turning dials, it's also kind of floppy. In other words, it doesn't 'lock' onto the holder or snap in place. Time will tell if that holder holds up. My plan is to just keep that on my tablet stand so we'll see.

I also read the manual last night. It's well written and laid out. This is my first Mackie product so I'm not used to their manual writing 'style' but they do like to inject a bit of humor or at least they did in this manual. There is a whole section dedicated to a 'Presence' feature/dial. I didn't see this dial anywhere on the amp or mixer pad so I thought maybe it was just something that they needed to remove from the final product and didn't update the manual. But as I read the details it became apparent that it was a joke and there is no such feature/dial. It was funny but I was a little bummed at first as I thought it would be a nice feature to have. I was also a little bummed to learn from the manual that the two-button footswitch (on order) is not a two-button looper function but rather one button for turning the effects on and off. This is a bummer as most people know a one-button looper sucks. Maybe it's something that a future firmware update can fix?

I'll update again in a few weeks after getting the bag and footswitch and using it live for a few shows. I'm looking forward to the others reviews when they get to it.

[Methos1979]

A couple photos...

[nostatic]

Originally Posted by Methos1979

How does it sound? I was able to dial in the two vocal channels pretty darn fast. The system does not like the inexpensive wireless mic units we use. They are noisy with a bit of hiss. To be fair, I get the same thing on the Stagepas. I only use the wireless for my wife anyway since I'm anchored to a mic stand. In a gig space you likely wouldn't hear it at all. The guitar on the other hand was a much different story. I had a very hard time dialing in a great sound with any of my guitars including my Cole Clark which typically sounds great through everything. Part of this is being spoiled with the outstanding EV30M which gives great guitar tone. I've been spoiled by that for sure. That said, I was able to get a decent tone after playing around with things for an hour and the tone is on par with the Stagepas. There are plethora of onboard effects and I have to say they are pretty awful compared to most. We only use a tiny bit of reverb anyway but I was definitely not impressed.

.

Thanks - this tracks with my expectations, particularly the onboard effects (sucking). The other issue is that Mackie has put their mid control at 2.5Khz since forever and that is way too high for my taste. If they gave you just a freq control it would be awesome (and should be doable through firmware).

Nice to hear it is plenty loud. I don't use any wireless so that doesn't bug me. It doesn't seem to be a game changer for me as I typically gig with my Bud 10 and never have to do much tweaking - I set levels at the beginning and am done with it. I have a small pedal board that gives me control of the guitar tone so that aspect of the remote mixer doesn't help much (particularly with their eq points).

For those that do a lot of adjusting during a gig I think this will be a welcome change from an app but some folks love swipe-to-tweak.

[Groberts]

Thanks for the quick early report Scott! This is going to be a great unit for many. I am fairly confident it's not for me for a variety of reasons. The biggest being how you struggled to get a great amplified acoustic guitar tone, even with your Cole Clark. That is troubling.

[JakeStone]

Thanks for posting your first thoughts and review so quickly.

Mine is going to be delivered tomorrow!

I am excited to give it a "whirl"

I bought it to possibly replace the Everse 8 with an 'All in one' for my guitar, vocals and backing tracks. My PRS SE Hollowbody II guitar is dual source pickups with both Piezo and Humbuckers.

So the added inputs is appealing to me. Also the built-in guitar sims and effects. Plus the effects loop.

The break away mixer is cool for me too... As you mentioned, the EV App is great but tablets are not as easy or quick as real knobs!

But in the end... Sound quality matters too!
So we'll see if the system works out.

[jricc]

Thanks for the quick report Scott!

[martingitdave]

Mine arrived today but I won't be able to open it for a few days. Your review about the sound has me a little worried. My problem with the Bose S1 Pro is that it's hard for me to use and see the LCDs with the encoder when it's on the floor. I also dislike the built in wireless bugs because of their design and buttons, though they sound good. I think the new Bose was designed by a 20-30 year old. The Mackie looks like a product that's easier for me to use. I just hope it sounds decent.

[ZackPomerleau]

Definitely curious to hear your thoughts as I use an archtop and would want to use it for its supposed amp sim. I use a joyo American sound with my Everse and it’s great but I’d love more inputs as I do lots of house sound gigs and it’s a pain with only two inputs

Originally Posted by JakeStone

Thanks for posting your first thoughts and review so quickly.

Mine is going to be delivered tomorrow!

I am excited to give it a "whirl"

I bought it to possibly replace the Everse 8 with an 'All in one' for my guitar, vocals and backing tracks. My PRS SE Hollowbody II guitar is dual source pickups with both Piezo and Humbuckers.

So the added inputs is appealing to me. Also the built-in guitar sims and effects. Plus the effects loop.

The break away mixer is cool for me too... As you mentioned, the EV App is great but tablets are not as easy or quick as real knobs!

But in the end... Sound quality matters too!
So we'll see if the system works out.

[JakeStone]

Originally Posted by ZackPomerleau

Definitely curious to hear your thoughts as I use an archtop and would want to use it for its supposed amp sim. I use a joyo American sound with my Everse and it’s great but I’d love more inputs as I do lots of house sound gigs and it’s a pain with only two inputs

Yep.. My unit is out for delivery!
But I won't get to play with it until tomorrow.

[Methos1979]

There's a recent update back up on the original post with my follow up comments and thoughts after playing around with the ShowBox more today. But I've run out of space on that post so now I'll have to update further down here! A few things I didn't mention above were things I learned from reading the manual specifically with regard to the PA/Amp and the Outdoor/Indoor buttons on the back of the ShowBox. Both buttons are basically onboard 'EQ flavorings' where minor generic tone curve changes are instituted based on the button position.

Think of the Bose S1 auto-EQ's based on the position of the amp (floor, wedge, pole). According to Mackie, playing outdoors or indoors has different EQ requirements based on reflective surfaces (or lack thereof) so they tweak the tone curves to best represent those needs. The PA/Amp button is similar and Mackie states that 'Amp' mode should be used with mics and instruments while 'PA' mode is for streaming music. I played around a little more today with both of these and noticed no significant sound changes when going back and forth so like the Bose auto-EQ, the changes are subtle.

Just as I was hitting send on the first update on the top post, FedEx showed up (surprisingly!) with the case and the footswitch. The case is just okay. It fits well and does the job but the padding is very thin and nylon quality is not very heavy duty. It does have a nice backpack strap setup and two decent sized pockets with various small pouches and slots for mics, cables, etc. There's a single handle on the top and one of the side that are very thin and the zippers do not have a high quality feel. I would not be surprised to see these fail fairly quickly with enough use.

That said, the bag is certainly serviceable for the time being but it's not nearly as well made and heavy duty as the Bose S1 Pro or the Yamaha Stagepas 200 cases which I purchased when I bought those systems. Then again the ShowBox case was also MUCH less expensive that either of those. The ShowBox case goes for $79.99 while the Bose is like $160 and the Stagepas was $174, IIRC. So I guess you get what you pay for. Fortunately for me, even though we gig 150 shows a year it's mostly assisted living places and just the two of us so my gear rarely shows much wear from transportation.

As for the two-button pedal, it's well made with decent foot switches that are silent (no clicking). The pedal is small but constructed of metal and it's heavy with a good feel. It also came with a decent length TRS cable. I have not as yet attempted to use the pedal or the looper. I'll play around with that next.

[jricc]

Originally Posted by Methos1979

There's a recent update back up on the original post with my follow up comments and thoughts after playing around with the ShowBox more today. But I've run out of space on that post so now I'll have to update further down here! A few things I didn't mention above were things I learned from reading the manual specifically with regard to the PA/Amp and the Outdoor/Indoor buttons on the back of the ShowBox. Both buttons are basically onboard 'EQ flavorings' where minor generic tone curve changes are instituted based on the button position.

Think of the Bose S1 auto-EQ's based on the position of the amp (floor, wedge, pole). According to Mackie, playing outdoors or indoors has different EQ requirements based on reflective surfaces (or lack thereof) so they tweak the tone curves to best represent those needs. The PA/Amp button is similar and Mackie states that 'Amp' mode should be used with mics and instruments while 'PA' mode is for streaming music. I played around a little more today with both of these and noticed no significant sound changes when going back and forth so like the Bose auto-EQ, the changes are subtle.

Just as I was hitting send on the first update on the top post, FedEx showed up (surprisingly!) with the case and the footswitch. The case is just okay. It fits well and does the job but the padding is very thin and nylon quality is not very heavy duty. It does have a nice backpack strap setup and a decent sized pocket with various small pouches and slots for mics, cables, etc. There's a single handle on the top and one of the side that are very thin and the zippers do not have a high quality feel. I would not be surprised to see these fail fairly quickly with enough use.

That said, the bag is certainly serviceable for the time being but it's not nearly as well made and heavy duty as the Bose S1 Pro or the Yamaha Stagepas 200 cases which I purchased when I bought those systems. Then again the ShowBox case was also MUCH less expensive that either of those. The ShowBox case goes for $79.99 while the Bose is like $160 and the Stagepas was $174, IIRC. So I guess you get what you pay for. Fortunately for me, even though we gig 150 shows a year it's mostly assisted living places and just the two of us so my gear rarely shows much wear from transportation.

As for the two-button pedal, it's well made with decent foot switches that are silent (no clicking). The pedal is small but constructed of metal and it's heavy with a good feel. It also came with a decent length TRS cable. I have not as yet attempted to use the pedal or the looper. I'll play around with that next.

Scott, thanks for the update. Is the 2 button pedal for the looper, effects or both?

[jricc]

Originally Posted by Methos1979

There's a recent update back up on the original post with my follow up comments and thoughts after playing around with the ShowBox more today. But I've run out of space on that post so now I'll have to update further down here! A few things I didn't mention above were things I learned from reading the manual specifically with regard to the PA/Amp and the Outdoor/Indoor buttons on the back of the ShowBox. Both buttons are basically onboard 'EQ flavorings' where minor generic tone curve changes are instituted based on the button position.

Think of the Bose S1 auto-EQ's based on the position of the amp (floor, wedge, pole). According to Mackie, playing outdoors or indoors has different EQ requirements based on reflective surfaces (or lack thereof) so they tweak the tone curves to best represent those needs. The PA/Amp button is similar and Mackie states that 'Amp' mode should be used with mics and instruments while 'PA' mode is for streaming music. I played around a little more today with both of these and noticed no significant sound changes when going back and forth so like the Bose auto-EQ, the changes are subtle.

Just as I was hitting send on the first update on the top post, FedEx showed up (surprisingly!) with the case and the footswitch. The case is just okay. It fits well and does the job but the padding is very thin and nylon quality is not very heavy duty. It does have a nice backpack strap setup and a decent sized pocket with various small pouches and slots for mics, cables, etc. There's a single handle on the top and one of the side that are very thin and the zippers do not have a high quality feel. I would not be surprised to see these fail fairly quickly with enough use.

That said, the bag is certainly serviceable for the time being but it's not nearly as well made and heavy duty as the Bose S1 Pro or the Yamaha Stagepas 200 cases which I purchased when I bought those systems. Then again the ShowBox case was also MUCH less expensive that either of those. The ShowBox case goes for $79.99 while the Bose is like $160 and the Stagepas was $174, IIRC. So I guess you get what you pay for. Fortunately for me, even though we gig 150 shows a year it's mostly assisted living places and just the two of us so my gear rarely shows much wear from transportation.

As for the two-button pedal, it's well made with decent foot switches that are silent (no clicking). The pedal is small but constructed of metal and it's heavy with a good feel. It also came with a decent length TRS cable. I have not as yet attempted to use the pedal or the looper. I'll play around with that next.

Scott, thanks for the update. Is the 2 button pedal for the looper, effects or both?
Edit-never mind, I just read the addendum on your initial post.

[zeeway]

Hey Scott,

I want you to know that I am a fan of your reviews…they are straightforward, and have the feel of talking to a trusted friend. I am a little tempted by the Mackie Showbox, but not enough to bite (maybe…yet). But your review tells me just maybe…that I should put it on my future gear list.

[CASD57]

In his original post he states the footswitch is for the effects...not the looper

[JakeStone]

Thanks for the update!

Mine arrived today. But no time yet to unbox, Hopefully tomorrow.

I will look forward to adding my thoughts in next couple days.