Mackie SR244 / SR324 Owner's Manual - Page 14

SECTION 3: OFFICIAL GUIDED TOUR - PANEL LAYOUT & FUNCTION Layout and Function Those of you with a lot of sound mixing experience can see that the Mackie SR24•4 (and 32•4, obviously) has a pretty straightforward layout, and you may not need to take the detailed Guided Tour which follows. However, we've built a few tricks into the SR24•4, and you might want to take particular notice of the solo mode switch, the various EQ curves and some of the special switching in the Monitor/Output Section. Check for the VERY IMPORTANT icons. Everyone else, the tour leaves at the next paragraph in about 5 seconds. Shirts and shoes are recommended but not mandatory; cameras and recorders are allowed. Please, please do not feed the Chihuahua, no matter how much it begs. FRONT PANEL Most of the Mackie SR24•4 front panel consists of the 22 channel strips for the mixer inputs (30 on the 32•4). You'll notice that Channel Strips 1-20 (or 1-28) are identical (MOTTO: Learn one and you learn them all) and that the strips numbered 21-22 and 23-24 (or 29-30 and 31-32) are almost the same, but in stereo (MOTTO: Learn one and you learn both). You can already see this promises to be painless. To the right of the channel strips is an area which we can call the Monitor/Output Section and be right most of the time. This is where you set and meter the overall volume level, make adjustments to solo, auxiliary and headphone levels and accomplish other miscellaneous essential tasks. OO OO OO OO OO OO OO VERY LOW IMPEDANCE DESIGN MIC GA-1IN0 U TRIM 1 10 60 +10dB -40dB U AUX 1 PRE +15 U 2 PRE +15 U 3 +15 U 4 +15 U PRE 5 +15 U 6 +15 U EQ HI 12k -15 +15 U -15 +15 MID FREQ 100 8kHz U -15 +15 LOW CUT 75 Hz 18dB/OCT LOW 80Hz OL L R -20 PAN 1 MUTE MUTE / SOLO dB 10 SOLO 5 U 1-2 5 3-4 10 20 L-R 30 40 50 60 LINE ONLY CHANNELS 21-24 MIC/LINE CHANNELS 1-20 (IDENTICAL) OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO OO U -20 +20 U TRIM 21 22 AUX 1 PRE +15 U 2 PRE +15 U 3 +15 U 4 +15 U -20 +20 U TRIM 23 24 AUX 1 PRE +15 U 2 PRE +15 U 3 +15 U 4 +15 U PRE 5 +15 U 6 +15 U EQ -15 +15 U -15 +15 U -15 +15 U HI 12k HI MID 3k LOW MID 800Hz -15 +15 LOW 80Hz U PRE 5 +15 U 6 +15 U EQ -15 +15 U -15 +15 U -15 +15 U HI 12k HI MID 3k LOW MID 800Hz -15 +15 LOW 80Hz OL OL L R -20 L R -20 PAN PAN 21 22 MUTE 23 24 MUTE MUTE / SOLO MUTE / SOLO dB dB 10 SOLO 10 SOLO 5 5 U 1-2 U 1-2 5 5 3-4 3-4 10 10 20 L-R 20 L-R 30 30 40 40 50 50 60 60 OO OO CHANNEL STRIPS 1-20 The channel strip (also called the input channel or input module) is where most of the work of sound mixing is done. The first 20 channel strips on the Mackie SR24•4 (28 on the SR32•4) contain all of the level, assignment and equalization controls for each mono input channel. This section describes the controls and functions of each feature on a channel strip in detail. NOTE: Remember, Stereo Channel Strips are slightly different from the rest. We'll look at the differences later in the tour. VERY LOW IMPEDANCE DESIGN MASTER INPUT/OUTPUT LAMP OO OO OO OO OO OO U 1 +15 U 2 +15 U 3 +15 U 4 +15 U 5 +15 U 6 +15 AUX SEND MASTERS TRACK 1 • 5 5 SOLO SOLO SOLO SOLO SOLO SOLO TRACK 2 • 6 5 OO OO OO OO U U 1 +20 U 1 +15 U OO OO OO +20 U +20 U 2 2 +15 TO AUX 3 SEND 1-2 (EFX TO MONITOR) U 4 +20 +20 TAPE RETURN ASSIGN TO SUB 1-2 3-4 SUB STEREO AUX RETURNS GLOBAL AUX RETURN SOLO TRACK 3 • 7 5 TRACK 4 • 8 5 CLIP 28 10 7 4 2 0 2 4 7 10 20 30 40 LEVEL SET LEFT RIGHT OPERATING LEVEL 0dB = 0dBu RUDE SOLO LIGHT U POWER MODE +15 LEVEL SOLO PRE FADER IN PLACE AFL AUX SUB OO OO 0 +10 AIR 16kHz SOLO 0 +10 AIR 16kHz SOLO 0 +10 AIR 16kHz SOLO 0 +10 AIR 16kHz SOLO MAX LEVEL MAIN MIX TALKBACK AUX 1-2 L R PAN L/R ASSIGN SUB 1 dB 10 5 U 5 10 20 30 40 50 60 L R PAN L/R ASSIGN SUB 2 dB 10 5 U 5 10 20 30 40 50 60 L R PAN L/R ASSIGN SUB 3 dB 10 5 U 5 10 20 30 40 50 60 L R PAN L/R ASSIGN SUB 4 dB 10 5 U 5 10 20 30 40 50 60 TAPE RETURN TO PHONES / C R OO MAX PHONES / C-R LEVEL MAIN MIX TAPE RETURN TO MAIN MIX LEFT/RIGHT dB 10 5 U 5 10 20 30 40 50 60 CHANNEL FADER The SR24•4 channel fader [1] is 60 millimeters long, with a precise logarithmic taper and channel gain or attenuation markings screened along the slot for precise and repeatable level adjustments. The "log taper" part refers to the fact that gain increase and reduction are smooth along the fader's travel. It doesn't go silent at about -30dB the way cheaper D-taper faders do. When you fade OO OO OO OO OO 12