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What mixer offers the best quality on board effects

It's all a matter of personal opinion & what you really want.  The Mackie DFX12 is a great all around board & the built in effects are very good.

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With a slightly modified Dfx12
and a Microverb 4, I use 5/6 7/8 for the background and 9/10 11/12 for karaoke. Left into 9/10 with 2efx at 9 oclock and right into 11/12 and 2efx at unity. Efx 2 is routed to the Microverb 4 and returned stereo aux1 Left red fader is Microverb 4 right fader  is internal efx. The 11/12 fader is a level cntrl for efx and the treble and bass 0n 11/12 can be tailored also (hip hop turn the eq low up or chourus turn the eq high up)
 After trying about every setting on the Microverb I usually run 97, 98 or 99 with the decay and rate time set according to the acoustics of the room. Do this with a heavy bass solo for proper delay to middle to the back of the room.
 The Dfx12 is mounted on loose hinges made out shelf brackets and can be lifted to a vertical position for access to the units inside. For transport it is dropped down into the case. .
 The 4 jacks above the 9/10 11/12 channels are normalled out and returned thru a BBE 362 and an Aphex 104. The comp is a 2 unit in bottom of case. This system rocks!!!

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For a general all around VOCAL effect using the DFX12
what are MOST using.   I use this board and haven't found an effect
I really like yet..... What some singers tell me is that it sounds dry like
there are no effects at all ... I know TOO much EFX is cheezzy so I'm wondering what most use ....

On the CFX12 (same effects) I use the large plate for reverb.  I also have an Alesis Midiverb 3 that I run delay as well.  Sometimes will run the delay into the reverb for an overlapped effect which will really thicken up some songs.  However with any effect (as a general rule) if you can "notice" it, it's too much but when you turn it off, you'd know the difference - confusing huh?  

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Running live vocal efx for 20-30 different singers and all genres is almost impossible.Proper vocal efx  is one of the most important factors in bringing (good) singers back to shows. Iv'e tried to improve for years and will probably spend forever doin the same. I would like to see a good thread on this with alot of input and various methods that are used also.  It is easier running FOH and out in the crowd where you can really hear what the efx are doing. If singers tell me they cant hear efx in their vocal I tell them to go to the back side of the stage monitor (I run the stage monitor at an angle) and listen more to the mains and tell them the efx are setup for the room and crowd not the singer. I will even let them sing at the mixer which is about 50 feet out front if they want.  

Here are some of the methods I've developed both live and tracking and mixing down. For songs like crazy I use large plate or small plate depending on the singer, some have natural tremelo and dont need as much. On old rock I use the old spring or if more treble is needed use phasor.Heavy rock I use gated (more for the music) On most songs I switch to chourus on the mixer and run the fader up according to the amount needed (during the chourus parts). With duets I'm usually on chourus throughout.Good singers I'll turn the efx2 down on their channel and the not so good I'll give them more efx...

Where I really started to understand how to apply efx to vocals was when I started tracking and mixing with Sonar3. It is alot easier when you can loop through a certain part over and over and get the efx needed.With the vocals recorded dry (I come out of the compressor) on seperate tracks you can apply parametric eq (freq and bandwidth  selection) and tailor as needed and  bounce down to another track.  For richness both plate and flange can be added to seperate tracks.Chourus and amount is applied to another track at the right times and another method is to bounce down 2 or 3 of the original vocal tracks and delay each one for a different chorus effect. (I think I finally spelled chorus right) Then the different tracks are added together in another bounce down and their respective faders are adjusted for amounts.  Sometimes I run thru the dfx12 again for those (362 and 104) efx.

 Anyway here are a few ideas (they work)  And like I say Im still learning and welcome all ideas on this subject When the efx are adjusted half way decent on a system hardly anybody sounds real bad.... The system is easy to sing on and the singers relax, get better and they tend to try new stuff more... Whew!!  Im not a speech giver or a typer either.....

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