Mixing Consoles Explained – Part 1 of 3
In this tutorial I am explaining mixing consoles.
What types of audio consoles are there?
The world of audio is brimming with equipment, and a crucial piece of the puzzle is the audio console. These consoles act as command centers, allowing you to manage, mix, and manipulate various audio sources. But with so many types available, choosing the right one can be overwhelming. Here’s a breakdown of the main categories to guide you:
By Function:
- Mixing Consoles: These are the workhorses of studios and live sound. They allow you to combine multiple audio sources (microphones, instruments, pre-recorded tracks) and adjust their levels, panning (placement in the stereo image), and effects for a cohesive final mix.
- Monitoring Consoles: Primarily used in recording studios, monitoring consoles focus on providing clear and accurate audio for musicians and producers while recording. They allow control over headphone mixes and studio speaker levels.
- DJ Mixers: Designed for DJs, these consoles offer features specifically tailored to beat-matching and seamless transitions between songs. They typically have two or more channels for turntables or CD players, crossfaders for quick switching, and cueing functions to pre-listen to tracks.
By Technology:
- Analog Consoles: These classic consoles use electronic circuits to process audio signals. They are known for their warm, natural sound and are prized by audiophiles. However, they can be expensive and require more maintenance.
- Digital Consoles: The digital revolution brought digital consoles, which use digital signal processing (DSP) to manipulate audio. They offer greater flexibility with features like signal routing, effects processing, and digital recording capabilities. They are also often more compact and affordable compared to analog consoles.
By Size and Application:
- Large Format Consoles: These beasts dominate professional recording studios and live sound setups. They boast numerous channels, extensive features, and modular designs for ultimate control.
- Medium Format Consoles: Offering a balance between features and size, medium format consoles are popular in project studios and smaller live venues. They provide enough channels and functionalities for most recording and mixing needs.
- Small Format Consoles: Compact and often portable, small format consoles are ideal for home studios, live performances with limited space, and mobile applications like podcasting. While they have fewer channels, they still offer essential mixing capabilities.
What is the signal flow of audio consoles?
Audio consoles, the maestros of the sound world, orchestrate a complex flow of signals to create the final mix we hear. Here’s a breakdown of the typical signal path within these consoles:
The Source is King:
The journey begins with the source, which could be a microphone capturing a singer’s voice, an instrument plugged directly into the console, or a pre-recorded track played from a digital audio workstation (DAW). Each source feeds into a dedicated channel on the console.
Preamps: The Power Boost
Most audio signals, especially those from microphones, are weak and require amplification. This is where the preamp comes in. Each channel typically has a built-in preamp that boosts the signal strength to a level suitable for further processing within the console. Some preamps also offer features like phantom power (essential for condenser microphones) and equalization (EQ) for basic tonal shaping.
The Processing Playground:
Once amplified, the signal enters the processing section of the channel strip. This section may include various features depending on the console:
- EQ: This allows you to sculpt the tonal characteristics of the sound by boosting or attenuating specific frequencies.
- Dynamics Processors: Compressors, limiters, and gates can be used to control the dynamic range of a signal, taming peaks, bringing quiet elements up, and minimizing unwanted noise.
- Inserts: These jacks allow you to patch in external effects processors like reverb, delay, or distortion pedals for additional creative manipulation of the sound.
Faders and Routing:
Each channel has a fader, a slider that controls the overall volume of that specific source in the final mix. Here, you balance the various elements, creating a cohesive soundscape.
The Mixing Bus:
The adjusted signals from each channel are then routed to the mixing bus, where they are summed together to create the main stereo or mono output. Some consoles offer the option of sending individual channels to separate buses for further mixing or effects processing.
Monitoring and Recording:
The final mix can be sent to various destinations:
- Main Outputs: These connect to your studio monitors or live sound speakers for everyone to hear the final product.
- Phones Outputs: Dedicated headphone outputs allow musicians and producers to monitor individual channels or the entire mix with clarity.
- Recording Outputs: Modern consoles often have built-in recording capabilities. The final mix or individual channels can be routed to a DAW for capture and further manipulation.
The Magic Lies in the Mix:
Understanding this signal flow empowers you to navigate the world of audio consoles. By manipulating the various stages – from preamps and EQ to faders and routing – you can sculpt, balance, and ultimately create the perfect sonic tapestry for your music or live performance.
What are Busses and Auxes?
In the world of audio consoles, busses and auxes play a crucial role in signal routing and processing, allowing you to create complex mixes. While their functions might seem interchangeable at first glance, there are key distinctions between them. Here’s a breakdown to clarify their roles:
Busses: Combining Signals for a Unified Destination
- Think of a bus like a shared taxi: Imagine multiple audio signals (passengers) boarding a single bus (the bus channel). This bus then transports the combined signal (all the passengers together) to a specific destination (another channel or the main output).
- Applications: Busses are ideal for grouping similar instruments or effects together. For example, you could use a bus to combine all your drum mics and route them to a single channel for easy compression and overall drum level control. Another common use is for creating reverb sends, where multiple instruments are routed to a reverb bus, adding the effect subtly to everything in the mix.
Auxes: Sending Signals for External Processing
- Imagine an aux as a detour: An aux channel taps into a signal and sends a copy of it (not the original) to a separate location for processing. This allows you to manipulate the sound with external effects processors or create dedicated monitor mixes.
- Think “auxiliary”: The term “auxiliary” reflects the aux’s role in providing additional processing options outside the main signal path. For example, you could send a vocal track to an aux channel, patch it into a reverb pedal, and then return the wet (processed) signal back to the main mix, adding a layer of ambience to the vocals without affecting the original dry signal. Auxes are also commonly used to create monitor mixes for musicians onstage, allowing them to hear specific instruments or vocals in their headphones without affecting the overall mix sent to the audience.
Key Differences:
Here’s a table summarizing the key differences between busses and auxes:
| Feature | Bus | Aux |
|---|---|---|
| Signal Path | Combines and routes signals | Sends a copy of a signal |
| Destination | Another channel, main output | External effects processor, |
| monitor mix | ||
| Affects Original Signal | Yes, original signal is combined | No, original signal remains |
| Typical Applications | Grouping instruments, effects sends | Reverb sends, monitor mixes |
Video Text:
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hey what’s up it’s week four Wikimedia tutorials and today I’m going to take a look at mixing consoles we’re gonna learn the basics of a simple mixer like this right here but we’re also gonna learn how to work with a really huge console like this here and we’re gonna see that the software mixers that we use are actually pretty much the same at first they might look intimidating because there’s so many knobs and functions on them but that we’re gonna strip them down and we’re gonna take a look at the most commonly found functions so let’s take a look at a basic overview the simplest task that a mixing console has is to mix down several mono tracks into a stereo track as the name mixer in a professional recording environment there will be two main situations when we’ll be running our signal through to console during the recording process and during the mixing process during the recording process we’ve tried to have a clean signal path and we try to record a signal at an optimum level we also want to return to signal from the tape so that we can
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monitor or listen to it has actually been recorded during the mix down process we’re getting our signals back from the tape into the console where we can actually mix them as you can see for the recording there’s really a need for two different types of signal paths into one console routing wise we’ve got treat different types of consoles we’ve got a split console an inline console and a hybrid console the split console is split into different sections we’ve got an input section a monitor section and a master section with this type of console you can clearly understand the different signal paths that we have during recording and during mix down on split consoles we will often find subgroups which have their own master faders the disadvantage of split consoles is that they’ve got so many channels so they’re relatively big and there are quite expensive an inline type of console actually has two monitors section into the channel strip that means we have two separate level controls on one channel strip one for the channel path itself
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and one for the monitor path on many consoles were able to flip these two channel paths during mixing we’re normally want to work with the lower fader so that’s why it’s helpful that we can flip them inline consoles normally have subgroups – but they don’t have a dedicated subgroup master fader an advantage of an inline console is that there are a lot smaller than split consoles because they only have one channel for the monitor and the recording path a hybrid console is basically a combination of both of these types of consoles so they only have one channel strip for the monitor and a channel paths but they also have subgroups with their own dedicated master faders so most of the consoles that we will run into normally have a whole section for all the channels with the so called channel strips and that we have a whole section for the mastering and that’s where we will find the master fader let’s take a look at the general signal flow that will find in a lot of consoles vertically we’ve got the channels and we can kind of visualize our signals going in from the top and going towards the bottom a mixing console also has buses which can be seen
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as horizontal connections throughout the board so in other words a bus is a summing line where different channels can be summed together the main bus that we have is our mix bus or our left/right bus where we sent channels to the main bus it means that we’re sending them to the mix in the studio we’ve got the monitors connected to the monitor output of the console we can select the source to be the mix bus so we can actually monitor and listen to our mix over the speakers we also have the regular mix output which we connect to our master tape recorder that means that we’re recording the left-right output of all the signals that are being sent to our mix bus which is actually the way to record our mix but we also have group buses this allows us to actually group tracks during recording when we have a limited amount of tracks available during mix down it can be used to control the level of a whole group of tracks that’s been routed to that group so we could for example route all the different drum channels into one group track where we can apply the level
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changes and even maybe EQ or compression on the whole drum group we normally talk about sub grouping in that situation an auxilary bus can be used for alternative mixes but they’re also being used to send two effects or sometimes for creating headphone mixes it’s just a simple horizontal connection which is available on all the channels that we have and we can just send a portion of the signal to this extra bus I’ll show some practical examples in a second auxiliary channels are not to be mixed up with inserts on the channel but we’re gonna take a look at that right now on the channel strip this was going to become a very long tutorial so I split it up in three sections in part two I’m gonna do a detailed view on the channel strip you can check out the second part right here.
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