Mackie 32.8Bus Owner's Manual - Page 22

GENERAL INFO many recorders, and no amplifiers, that can tol- You can check EQ, possible distortion or buzz, erate such high signal levels. Therefore, it's best or just listen to see if a particular mic is open or that the red LEDs never light up. not. This function can also be handled by each But, if your music is sounding good, don't channel's -20/OL LEDs. See Section 2 "-20 and worry if you're in the yellow a lot or if some parts OL LEDs" for more details. When soloing more of the track hardly read at all. You'll quickly get a than one source, you can listen to the blend of feel for what works for you, when you can get just part of your mix: only the sopranos, for ex- away with really smacking the tape or the elec- ample, or just the tom mics on the drums. tronics too much. The solo circuits are designed not to inter- BUSES rupt the recording process. The solo bus signal is sent directly to the control-room monitors More often than not, the goal in a mixing con- without affecting any of the inputs, outputs or sole is to mix two or more inputs into one recording buses. output. Like a coach who has two or more play- When you are mixing or monitoring with re- ers to get to the same ballgame, console verb, remember to not only solo the channel designers use a bus. Even Webster's Unabridged you'd like to hear, but also the AUX Return carry- Dictionary agrees, defining the word bus in elec- ing your reverb. Otherwise, you will hear the tronics as "a conductor serving as a common channel soloed dry, without its echo. connector for three or more circuits." The Mackie 8•Bus Series has, in fact, many EQ more than eight buses. The eight memorialized Everybody knows what EQ is, but just in case in the name are important, but there are also six you'd like a refresher, we'll put in a few para- AUXiliary buses, a pair of L/R Mix buses, the al- graphs here. ternate pair of MIX-B buses, and a pair of Solo Equalization (EQ) refers to purposely chang- buses. We will try to be clear just what bus we ing the frequency response of a circuit, are talking about when we do talk about buses. sometimes to correct for previous unequal re- SENDS AND RETURNS sponse (hence the term, equalization), and more often to add or subtract level at certain frequen- Sends are outputs, and returns are inputs. So cies for a pleasing effect. why don't we call them outputs and inputs? Bass and treble controls on your stereo are Well, actually, the terms send and return can EQ; so are the devices called parametrics and mean many things, but the way they are generally graphics and notch filters. used in mixing console parlance A lot of how we refer to is to refer to sends, which tap off equalization has to do with a little of a signal to send to some 3 HI MID VARIABLES what a graph of the frequency effects device (like a reverbera- response would look like. A flat tion unit), and returns, which response (no EQ) is a straight function to return that reverb line; a peak looks like a hill, a back into the mix. dip is a valley, a notch is a re- Sends are also used to tap ally skinny valley, and a shelf some mix of signal from a collec- looks like a plateau (or a tion of channels for a headphone cue mix. For that HI MID Variable 1: Boost/Cut shelf). The slope is the grade of the hill on the graph. For in- matter, sends can be used as stance, if you lived in Texas, additional mix buses, if needed. you would set y'all's EQs flat. In the same way, if you don't Graphic equalizers have need them for reverb or effects, enough frequency slider con- returns can be used as addi- trols to form a graph of the EQ tional inputs to your mix. right on the front panel. Para- SOLO HI MID Variable 2: Bandwidth metric EQs let you vary several EQ parameters at once. A filter Solo is a standard console is simply a form of equalizer function that allows you to listen that allows certain frequencies to one or more sources all by through unmolested and either themselves (soloed). reduces other frequencies or eliminates them entirely. HI MID Variable 3: Band Center 20 Fig.1