Peavey Mixer question

[briggleman]

I have a very small 10 channel Peavey Mixer. I am a little confused by the proper setting of the Individual channel Level slider control and the dialed gain control.

I had thought having either one of those controls at its lowest setting would kill the signal but that is not the case. With the gain turned all the way down to its zero setting on the mixer on channel one, the level slider at 0db (which is just above midway) I still get a very good signal. I have a picture of the unit below. The black knob at top is the gain and the white rectangular knob is the slider for the level.



Please explain the difference between gain and level on this beast.

Brad

[Rich_S]

Re: Peavey Mixer question

The "gain" control is really the input attenuator. Its job is to match the incoming signal to the guts of the mixer channel. Obviously, a raging Marshall cab through an SM57 is going to make a stronger signal than an acoustic guitar.

The input attentuator should be set as high as possible without causing the input to clip. Some mixers have clipping LEDs on each channel - just turn it up until the LED blinks dimly, only on the loudest transients. Other mixers let you "solo" each channel individually to a meter, so you can set it that way. Once set, the attenuator shouldn't need messing with during a performance.

The "mix" is performed on the faders - the slide pots at the bottom of the mixer. Ideally, if your attenuators are set right, all the faders should be in a broad middle band across the board - none pushed all the way up, and none down in the weeds (unless there's some good reason for only having a tiny bit of something in the mix). Some back-and-forth between the two adjustments might be required to ontain this.

The reason you want the attentuator as high as possible is noise; the each mixer preamp makes a certain amount of noise - the more signal you drive in the front, the less audible the noise will be in the mix.

[SlyFoxx]

Re: Peavey Mixer question

The gain (or trim) knob at the top is supposed to be adjusted so that the signal is at the nominal operating level of the mixer. Turned fully counter clockwise it is attenuating the incoming signal but not to the point of killing it completely. The gain knob is not a volume knob. The channel fader is what you use to change the volume of a signal relative to the other signals on the other channels. Usually you want these faders to be around the 0 range.


EDIT: nice rich....I kept waiting for the pic to load...it still hasn't for me.

[Rich_S]

Re: Peavey Mixer question

Don't need a pic. Every freakin' analog mixer in the world is the same. lol