bye bye thread hijacks!
to answer your question, if you are new to audio, its a great idea to get the 1202vlz pro. the 1402 will be 2 channels better, and something you'll find in this game is that you'll ALWAYS want/need more channels. so if you can afford it, do it. i imagine for the most part you wont use or need the actual faders, since you might just "set and forget" the rotary potentiometers at unity gain... i have turned countless friends onto this exact mixer and they all love it.
the dual-mono idea will work, but mackie hard pans right/left when both 1/4" jacks are plugged in, so recording to/from your soundcard will be a bit tricky on these channels... you'll have to be aware of what is routed where. i'll bet most of your synths are stereo anyways, and so the stereo channels are perfect for this. if you want a mono recording of a discrete channel, you can pull out the right plug and when panned to center, this becomes a standard mono signal.
the mackie is well built, has great preamps for the money, is flexible (multiple busses) and perhaps most importantly will let you learn on something high quality. right, its not a neve/api/avalon, but unless youre recording 4 piece rock bands you might not notice it. its completely possible that if youre mixing line level signals, you wont even notice.
so for your situation (where you have 4-5 hardware synths) the 1202 will suit you fine. like i said, it gives you busses, control room/monitor feed, mic preamps, eq, and aux sends. it will also retain its value, since youre probably buying it used.
in the future, you'll want to look into a compressor (RNC comes to mind for you) and then you'll suddenly find all sorts of things you want to buy to improve your sound.
and by the time you master this mixer---which could take a few YEARS---- you'll learn the differences an intricacies in sound between this and a neve.
hope this helps.
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