Mixing Board Question Thread

[Gearjoneser]

I figure there should be a thread dealing with questions about mixing consoles, since there's no shortage of technical questions. Even though I know my way around a mixer, I'm by no means a mixing engineer, which is a skill you've got to admire.

I'll start with one question, to get the ball rolling. What's the best way to assign one reverb unit to multiple channels, without the channels bleeding into each other. I know it's by sending the reverb to a bus, but how do you get each channel to tap that bus for the reverb?

 

[Robert S.]

Re: Mixing Board Question Thread

It depends on the board but the easiest way is to use the sub mix outs. Assign the channels you want to have reverb (as an example) all to the sub mix one channel and then take the sub one output to your reverb units input.

Patch the reverb unit output to a new channel input. The sub one fader or the new channel fader will now be your wet/dry mix for the reverb level for those channels

Most guys will ride the sub faders for effect levels because they physically stand apart from the channel faders so they are easier to find in a dark venue.

Virtual boards are a little easier still as they usually have effects buss send/returns, multple insert channels and other routing options. ProTools for example has 8 routable buss channels, 32 audio channels and I believe infinite (or quite a few, I dont use a lot of them) insert channels so singnal routing isn't limited by the number of physical sub and buss channels.

Using busses and insert channels can drastically decrease the number of plug ins per track which helps keep the processor load down.