Live Use Condenser Mic

[oligoon]

I take it the A&H mixers are well regarded as I've been looking to get a decent mixer. I did think of going digital but the lack of analogue insert points has put me off. However does anyone make a decent digital snake as I'm getting too old to fight with monster analogue stage snakes!?

 

Anyway the school mixer has 24 channel's which I can't see them ever using - for my own use I would have thought 8 or 10 mono inputs plus a couple of stereo would be plenty for me - I can always borrow the school one should I need a bigger one!

[Bobbsy]

Well, the reason so few digital mixers have analogue insert points is that all the various effects you'd tend to use on an insert are included internally to the mixer. It's the NOT having to carry racks of external effects that tend to make digital boards economically viable.

 

As for replacing an analogue snake with digital, there are quite a number of systems out there now. The only one I've used personally (other than digital mixers that have a head end separate from the control section) is AUDIORAIL which works reliably and well. It might be overkill for your application though.

 

As for 24 channels being too many, you'd be amazed how quickly they get eaten up. If you check elsewhere in the BR you'll find a school looking to rent a 48 channel board for a show they're doing!

 

Bob

[johndenim]

for my own use I would have thought 8 or 10 mono inputs plus a couple of stereo would be plenty for me - I can always borrow the school one should I need a bigger one!

 

Mono inputs?

 

I thought you were mixing mics?

[david.elsbury]

Mics go into mono inputs, John...

[johndenim]

OK, I had in mind mono jack inputs, I would not call an XLR mic input 'mono'?

[Sirch Sound]

But it is......

[johndenim]

I am well aware a microphone is mono, but an XLR input is not.

 

OK, it is, but it is balanced, not the same thing.

 

A concurrent post has been automatically merged from this point on.

 

To add:

 

If I put a stereo( rts jack) keyboard through a 'mono' XLR via a stereo DI box, is that mono?

[MarkPAman]

He means TRS (as you know :D )

 

Tip, Ring, Screen - usually used for balanced signals in our world, though also found headphone outputs and some laptop line-ins

[david.elsbury]

Right.

Mono = ONE channel. Regardless of what connector is on the input, if it accept one channel of sound, it is mono.

 

Stereo = TWO channels. (or rather, two channels of audio, L + R, coming into one channel on the desk, with one fader controlling both "lines" of audio). A "stereo" DI box has, in effect, two mono (1ch) DI's, in the one enclosure, So it will have two outputs, usually outputting mic level on XLR connectors, usually plugged into 2 seperate mono channels.

 

What's an RTS jack?

[johndenim]

Aye, trs, sorry, typo..

 

EDIT:

 

So David, a jack input is also a 'mono' insert.

Would you put a mic through this?

[Shez]

So David, a jack input is also a 'mono' insert.

 

Um, I think we're getting the terminology even more confused now! A jack input will almost always be a mono line level input. An insert is something entirely different. You wouldn't plug a mic in to either of those.

 

For me, a mono input refers to the most common channel found on most desks: one with an XLR input that can take a mic (and sometimes a line level) mono signal and a mono jack input that will take a line level input. Mono / stereo is completely unrelated to mic / line.

[Bobbsy]

Let's try to put this one to bed.

 

Most mixers have a relatively large number of MONO INPUTS. Each mono input typically has two different connectors: an XLR for balanced microphone input and a quarter inch TRS jack for balanced line level inputs. There are exceptions to this: for example, my DM1000 just has XLR connectors and uses these whether the input is mic or line level (using a Pad switch for the higher level inputs). On the other hand, some mixers aimed at the broadcast/editing market don't bother with the mic preamps and, instead, provide a large number of line-only inputs.

 

An input which handles only a single channel of audio is a mono input whatever the connector or nominal level of the feed.

 

Similarly, many mixers have some STEREO INPUTS. Stereo inputs allow two channels of audio to be controlled from a single channel strip/fader on the desk. MOST stereo inputs are line level, often on two TRS inputs but this is not always the case--mixers used at the low end of the market sometimes feature phono plug connectors and I've even seen a few that, confusingly, use a quarter in stereo connection, effectively the same CONNECTOR as a balanced TRS jack but wired in a different way to provide 2 unbalanced line level channels on a single connector. At the other end of the spectrum, my old location mixer (I wish I'd never sold it!) had a facility to put two balanced mic inputs on a single control for M-S stereo working.

 

As with mono, stereo means two channels of audio (and also implies these channels are matched for level, EQ, etc. otherwise it would be "two channel mono") and the connectors used and nominal level don't change this.

 

Mentioning INSERTS confuses the discussion even more. Inserts aren't designed to be used as an input at all. Rather, their function is to "insert" a piece of processing equipment into the desk's signal chain. As such, the INSERT allows you to output an audio signal, run it through the processor, then bring the processed signal back into the desk. A great many desks use a single TRS jack for this, doing output and input on the same connector. A few high end desks actually have two connectors (one out, one in) allowing proper balanced operation.

 

The main thing to take away from this is that the FUNCTION and the CONNECTOR are two different things. The poor TRS connector can be line level balanced mono, line level unbalanced stereo, or a two-directional insert connection, all depending on how it's wired. In the broadcast world it's not unusual to use XLR for everything, mic or line. If we extend this conversation outside audio, the same XLR can carry DMX for the lighting guys and a slightly modified one can carry DC or even mains power. I'll repeat again. CONNECTOR and FUNCTION are two different things.

 

Okay?

 

Bob