8/13/2019 Suggested Hookups and Applications

1/265Compact Mixer Reference Guide

APPLICATIONS: CHAPTER 1

MIXER APPLICATIONS SECTION

At Mackie, weve designed our m ixers to fit a wide

ran ge of app lications. In th is section, well show you

some poten t ial appl icat ions for each of our m odels ,

together with typical hookup diagrams. The fol lowinghow to d o it kn ob-by-knob desc riptions will be h elp-

ful if youre a beginn er. Some a pplicat ions highlight

un ique fea tu res of spec ific Mackie m ixers. Youll find

them worth rea d ing.

Generalities and Substitutions

Many of the h ookups and appl icat ions in this

sect ion are appl icable to an y mixer, as long as you

have en ough inputs a nd out put s , so i f you dont see a

part icular appl icat ion descr ibed for your m ixer, see

if th ere s a similar on e for an othe r mod el. Itll get yous tar ted .

While you ma y not ha ve (or n eed) every com-

ponen t on the hookup diagram th at most closely

mat ches your appl icat ion, you can apply these

genera l principles . There a re also a lot of nea t t r icks

spread th roughout th i s sect ion th at can be appl ied to

mixers other th an th e ones we describe. We suggest

tha t you keep this sect ion in your genera l reading

file and, as you ha ve a l i t t le spare t ime, work your

way throu gh al l the a ppl icat ions.

We occa sionally refer t o mode ls gen erica lly toavoid awkwar dly long shopp ing lists 1202 by itself

ap plies t o th e 1202-VLZ PRO, 1202-VLZ, and in m ost

case s the original MS1202. Onyx ser ies refer s to an y

of the Onyx mixers.

Recorders

Our diagram s show a variety of recording devices

- s tereo an d mult i t ra ck, analog and digi tal , tape and

disk. Used to be in the old ana log days that a r ecord-

er ha d an inpu t and a n outpu t for every t rack. Today

we have computer a udio inte rfaces ( tha ts the two-dol lar word for sound c ard) tha t h ave, for exam ple,

two inputs an d eight outpu ts , or vice versa.

When you only nee d to record one or two tracks at

a t ime, but wan t to use your mixer to mix your t ra cks,

a 2-in 8-out a udio interface is a mone y and space

saver. If you want to capt ure al l the mics in your

l ive show on individual t r acks, the n u se th e s ignal

processing and mixing capabi l it ies of your com pute r

worksta tion for mixdown. An 8- or 16-in, 2-out au dio

interface is a good choice in fact we offer one a s an

option for our Onyx ser ies mixers.

When i t comes to th e two-track mixdown recorder,

we scat ter DAT and casset te d ecks aroun d our dia-

grams with reckless aban don, but the res no reason

you cant mix to a comput er with a soun d card , a

stand -alone CD recorder, or an alog reel-to-reel .

Similarly, whe rever you see a ca sset te or CD player

as a playback source, you can su bst i tute a ny stereo

sourc e like an MP3 player.

Operating Levels and Impedance

With th e except ion of instru men t pickups, loud-

speake rs , and th e occasional vintage s ignal processorsalvaged from a broadcast s tudio, theres l i t t le reason

to worry about imped ance m atch ing when ma king

conne ct ions between uni ts . What de serves some at-

ten t ion, however, is ma tching of operat ing levels and

recognizing the impact of differen ces.

For man y year s there ha ve been two de facto s tan-

dard s for outp ut vol tage and inpu t sen si t ivi ty tha t fal

und er the broad classificat ion of pro and semi-

pro. The y usu ally use d iffere nt t ypes of conn ect ors,

but tha ts just a physical th ing. What s importan t t o

und ersta nd is that a pro input m ay require moresignal voltage t han a semi-pro outpu t is ca pable

of del ivering. Mackie mixers are designed t o cover

the ful l ran ge of opera t ing levels , but sometime s you

have to tu rn t he k nobs off their un i ty gain posit ions

in order to match u p with othe r equipme nt . Theres

nothing wrong with t hat ; it s why we put the m th ere.

One th ing that you should recognize in this era of

digital aud io workstat ions ( DAW) is tha t the ir ( as

well as Mackies own HDR24/96 hard disk recorde r)

graphic waveform displays put a whole lot of dynamic

ran ge into a relat ively nar row band of screen realestat e. Many people have the impression that the y

are rec ording at much t oo low a level when th e pea ks

only reach half the width of the t rack .

When t he display looks l ike this , the peak level is

only 6 dB below

maximum level .

It s pe rfec tly OK.

You ne edn t worry tha t th e mixer outp ut is too weak

for your recorde r or sound card .

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