Sound Reinforcement - Forums for Live Sound Professionals - Your Displayed Name Must Be Your Real Full Name To Post In The Live Sound Forums > LAB: The Classic Live Audio Board

Personal Mixer with Passthrough

(1/7) > >>

Kaeden Reese:
I've been out of the pro audio loop for some time, so I know nothing about the products available these days, but I cannot fathom why such a thing would not exist:

I need a 4(ish) channel mixer with passthrough on each channel. It would be used as a monitor at a piano or keyboard, able to mix a mic, piano, and a drum machine, etc. All that could be mixed locally, but then "forwarded" to front-of-house. Despite phrasing my Google search as many ways as possible, I cannot find anything of the sort. We are working with a very small setup in a church setting, and need all our AUX outputs for other purposes, but I just need something right there at the piano so I can hear myself, perhaps mixing down to a headphone amp of some kind.

Just need recommendations, please, as I'm completely stumped and swamped by Sweetwater ads that don't have the features I'm asking for. Am I really searching that far in the wrong direction that such a product doesn't exist? Am I missing some kind of obvious other solution? Thank you.

Mike Caldwell:
I can't thinking of anything in a 4ish channel table top mixer that has built in xlr split outs.
Couple of ideas the Mackie 1204 and 1402 mixers have channel insert jacks, with a custom wired cable those could be used channel split outputs......however those outputs would be unbalanced and for a long snake run to your mixer you should run them to a DI box before going into the snake and any changes to the preamp trim level on the small mixer would change the level hitting the main mixer.

You could get an external mic split.
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Split8--art-s8-8-channel-microphone-splitter
You could get by with just using a Y cable per channel for the split.

What do you have now for a main mixer?

If going with a small mixer you could just use the headphone output on the mixer.

Brian Jojade:
Do you need to forward the mix, or forward each of the signals?

The split Mike listed would work great.  Or, if you're on a budget, just get 4 individual XLR splits:  https://www.amazon.com/Neewer-Splitter-Balanced-Microphone-Adapter/dp/B09JK4VT35/ref=sr_1_25?adgrpid=1345803589007918&hvadid=84112998184961&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=108991&hvnetw=o&hvqmt=e&hvtargid=kwd-84113616192311%3Aloc-190&hydadcr=29842_14610187&keywords=xlr+splitter+cable&qid=1675139823&s=electronics&sr=1-25

In most cases you can get by without the transformer isolation of the more expensive unit.  If you get ground hum, then upgrade to the better unit.

If you're splitting AFTER the mix, same thing applies.  Just split the signal and you're done.

Kaeden Reese:
I appreciate the help!

The external mic splits is something I hadn't thought of (but upon reflection is an obvious choice). It just seems it's silly to require multiple pieces of equipment to do something like this, but again, I have no frame of reference.

It also seems overkill to send the signal all the way to the foh mixer, then all the way back over multiple runs to the piano, when all the inputs I'd want to monitor are already RIGHT THERE.

Our foh mixer is an older Mackie, but I'm afraid I don't know the model offhand. It only has 2 aux outs, one is being used for the choir's monitor and the other is for the livestream. We're considering upgrading the mixer as well to something a bit more versatile, but still, having a dedicated aux just for me at the piano will push the price higher than we're looking to pay.

Again, I'm baffled why such a product doesn't seem to exist. From my limited knowledge of electronics, it doesn't seem like it's a technical difficulty, and I could see a whole lot of use for it in situations like mine. A little personal mixer with passthroughs on each channel. Oh well, I guess.

I will look into microphone splitters, as they seem to be next best option, unless the above information jogs anyone's ideas :) Thank you very much!

Mike Caldwell:
If you only have two auxes and it's an older Mackie it must be a 1402 at the largest.

As you have probably notice there are LOTS of small digital mixer options available today and there are even more crazy deals on good used analog mixers if you wanted to get a drop in analog replacement that your operators would be used to.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page