Small Board/Console for very tight budget

[What???]

Good quality stuff with a great track record and less than a Mackie.

What???

This is the company that made its name by doing cheap rip-offs of other people's products - to the extent that they got sued by Mackie! Most of their stuff, with very few exceptions in fact, is markedly inferior to the products they've copied. I wouldn't call that a great track record at all.

Not the first company to rip off someone else..... The guy is looking for a mixer that's inexpensive and does the job.  This may be the product for him.  If not, buy a Mackie for crying out loud.

In that case the Mackie's would work best and give you some room for expansion should you want to add more and if you ever need phantom power the Mackie's have that already too.

Behringer's are also something worth considering.  I use three of their products (Eurorack 1604A mixer which comes with phantom power,an MDX 2200 Dynamics Processor and a XM8500 Dynamic Mic for field use) all of which have been rock solid.

Good quality stuff with a great track record and less than a Mackie.

 http://www.behringer.com/

I was thinking of the 1204A, but I also know that there have been tons of complaints about their product line.  I'm still keeping Behringer in mind, although I am leaning towards the Mackie.

I say again, don't rule out Soundcraft's Spirit range. They give good performance, are competitive and the features are well thought out.

And whether or not you need fader starts, the monitoring/routing facilities of the mixer are still important. Ten minutes spent with pencil and the back of an envelope drawing out precisely the signal path for all the various operations has got to be worth while.

It's not like I don't have the idea of what I need THIS board for in my head.  I understand where you're getting at, and yes I've got a grand scheme in mind.  The problem right now is budget.  I need something right now as a stop gap to make my life easier, and my budget at the moment is $100-$150 TOPS.  

The Soundcraft boards look pretty nice, and I will consider them once I can justify (i.e. convince the WIFE) that I need one.  Her idea of need and our idea of need are two differnt things.