I think you would be very happy with a Trident 88. I have a Trident 78, which has the same mic preamp but a slightly different EQ (80b style vs 80c on the 88). It sounds awesome - if you do any drum kit or other multi-instrument tracking, it makes the process a breeze. I love the sound of mixing through it as well - Trident EQs are very usable for shaping. My primary gripe with the 78 is that you cannot solo the small fader path on the channel strips, so they are hard to use as a second set of inputs for mixing. This is not a problem on the 88, and of course you have some sort of EQ on every mix path as well. I think the primary limitations on the 88 are the number of busses (8), the unbalanced inserts on the channels (which strangely are balanced on the 78 even though it is cheaper), and the lack of a solo logic system. For the last point, consider how solo and mute work on an SSL console for comparison. There, when you solo a track, it mutes all other tracks (except those that are marked safe) but otherwise uses the same mix bus. On the Trident boards, there is a separate solo bus, and so when you solo any channel then the monitor section automatically switches to monitoring the solo bus instead of the main mix bus. This makes it difficult to hear the contributions of an individual channel along all of its mix paths (e.g. parallel compression, effects returns) without also hearing what every other channel is feeding into those paths. Consoles with "real" solo/mute logic seem to push you into the next price point up, so probably best to forget that I mentioned it. 🙂 The workaround is to use the solo buttons in your DAW, which accomplishes the same goal but means you have to reach for your mouse.
One more piece of advice - if you are going to mix through it, buy the biggest console you can afford (and will fit in your space). It might have dedicated stereo effects returns, but you will want the ability to do creative shaping of those too (EQ, sending delays to reverbs, routing parallel comps to other comps, etc). Happy console shopping!
Alan Halverson.
Mike Ormsby
Mike Ormsby.
Alan Halverson