Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Frank DeWitt]

Frank...

I'm going to offer an alternative to your suggestion.

I prefer to set the input gains first to get an optimum level, then proceed to build a mix. 

I don't understand.  where do you set your faders before setting the input gain?  They need to be somewhere other then infinity. 

To clear up what I was saying, I set the faders at -5 then set the input gain, then never touch the input gain again for that practice and service.  We have 11 other mixers running off the preamps so adjusting the input gain causes trouble for lot's of people.

[g'bye, Dick Rees]

I don't understand.  where do you set your faders before setting the input gain?  They need to be somewhere other then infinity. 

To clear up what I was saying, I set the faders at -5 then set the input gain, then never touch the input gain again for that practice and service.  We have 11 other mixers running off the preamps so adjusting the input gain causes trouble for lot's of people.

Frank....

That's what the PFL or "cue" buttons are for.  Solo the channel to get it hooked to the metering, then set the input gain according to the meter.  Different folks prefer different input levels according to their experience and the dynamics of the performance.

If your board is a lower level one without the capability of "soloing" the channels, then yes, you'd set your faders how you want them to be for the mix and dial in the input gain using the meters in this mode.  It's another case of "6 of one.......".  Either way, you're using the meters.  I prefer using the PFL/solo/cue method as I don't then subject everyone else to blasts of sound as I dial in the inputs.

DR

[Don Sullivan]

Mixing from unity is a wonderful concept full of lousy assumptions. While it is a good idea to operate your input gains in a manner that lets you keep your faders around "unity", there are plenty of times you need to raise or drop a fader significantly above or below unity, such as when a singer moves away from a mic and you want more of them, or instruments suddenly play louder (or badly) and the fader is the first thing you use to drop them into noise. The balance between multiple singers and instruments is your responsibility and often needs riding to keep a reasonable mix. I do not regard a mixer as a "set it and forget it" rotisserie appliance. YMMV.

[Brad Weber]

Mixing from unity is a wonderful concept full of lousy assumptions. While it is a good idea to operate your input gains in a manner that lets you keep your faders around "unity", there are plenty of times you need to raise or drop a fader significantly above or below unity, such as when a singer moves away from a mic and you want more of them, or instruments suddenly play louder (or badly) and the fader is the first thing you use to drop them into noise. The balance between multiple singers and instruments is your responsibility and often needs riding to keep a reasonable mix. I do not regard a mixer as a "set it and forget it" rotisserie appliance. YMMV.

There may be some different aspects being addressed as I think what was being discussed in many of the responses was not 'set and forget' mixing or always keeping the faders at the same level but rather how to set the nominal starting point for the faders.

[g'bye, Dick Rees]

There may be some different aspects being addressed as I think what was being discussed in many of the responses was not 'set and forget' mixing or always keeping the faders at the same level but rather how to set the nominal starting point for the faders.

I think that a person learns how to set their input gains according to their dynamic needs.  I do a lot of catch-all audio, so I like to have as much head-room on the faders as possible.  If you're in the same situation with essentially the same musicians all the time, you learn the way that works for you in that scenario.  If you're never in the same situation in anything other than the general sense.....trench audio.....then you need a bit different approach.

Frank mentioned establishing an input gain with the faders set around -5.  I do pretty much the same thing, but I set my input gains by meter and to the "hottest" practical level.  I'll let the channel faders and mains levels develop as needed, but often find that I start our mixing the channels at around -5.......in the beginning.  As "more" becomes needed, I'll get the channel faders up around unity or above.

So I think it depends on the dynamics of the situation.  And that is a fairly large variable.

DR 

[Jay Barracato]

I think that if someone thinks that not having the fader at unity causes some noise problem, then the designer of the mixer need not of included that part at all.

[Karl Stringer]

Interesting discussion.
This is a very good article by rane:
http://www.rane.com/note135.html

I took their advice and set the input preamps/trim, whatever you want to call it to give as much signal as poss without clipping. This means all our chanel faders are at -20 to -5 at the most.
I could change that by just bringing the main down, but what would be the point? I set the main up by sending pink noise through at unity, with the master at unity and slowly turned the power amp down until it just stopped clipping (so, in theory at least, setting the maximum level that the amp can handle). Then set the main at -5 to give it a bit of breathing space.

Is it just aesthetics or am I missing something important in my understanding of how a board works (well, a digital one).

Thanks
Karl

[g'bye, Dick Rees]

Interesting discussion.
This is a very good article by rane:
http://www.rane.com/note135.html

I took their advice and set the input preamps/trim, whatever you want to call it to give as much signal as poss without clipping. This means all our chanel faders are at -20 to -5 at the most.
I could change that by just bringing the main down, but what would be the point? I set the main up by sending pink noise through at unity, with the master at unity and slowly turned the power amp down until it just stopped clipping (so, in theory at least, setting the maximum level that the amp can handle). Then set the main at -5 to give it a bit of breathing space.

Is it just aesthetics or am I missing something important in my understanding of how a board works (well, a digital one).

Thanks
Karl

I think the main consideration is not overloading any summing amps.   

[John Roberts {JR}]

Yawn, are you guys still flogging this?

When was the last time you had to back off faders because your summing amps were clipping....  anybody?

For Karl... One problem with pushing your preamp trims up to the edge of clipping at sound check, is what happens if the talent was holding back, and the inevitable volume creep as the night goes on, means that just before clipping, turns into  actual clipping.

I would leave a few dB of front end headroom JIC.

As I already mentioned once, modern consoles don't require walking the old school tightrope of hitting the bus hard to maximize dynamic range.

If it sounds good and you don't see clip lights, it is good... don't over think this..

JR

[g'bye, Dick Rees]

Yawn, are you guys still flogging this?

When was the last time you had to back off faders because your summing amps were clipping....  anybody?

The last time I had to use a cheap, crappy mixer supplied by an AV company.  And it wasn't me backing off my stuff.  It was me correcting the signal flow for the owner of the company.........

It can be done, but it requires a cheap mixer and significant OE.

[ProSoundWeb Community]