# speakers though a mixer?



## AlexD (Jul 12, 2009)

As most of you know I’m really new to this site and I’m rather new to sound teching as well. The set up that I have at my school is very simple with only a set of speakers, and we use the two main outs to send the signal to them. 

I was wondering how do you get multiple speakers out of a mixer? And dose it matter what mixer you have? Dose it change from mixer to mixer?


----------



## Anonymous067 (Jul 12, 2009)

That would completely depend on what mix you wanted to send to what speaker.

In the case of large concerts, all the "left array" speakers "get the same signal", so the output from the "console left out" is just parallel wired from amplifier to amplifier, because one amp cannot possibly power all those speakers.

However, at those same concerts, the performers have stage monitors, which are fed off of a different mix off the board, usually an axillary send.

Matrix outputs are also used to feed other areas of the venue or area, in a theater, these might be lobby and backstage feeds. In concerts, delay fills and such.

Mixes such as the matrices and auxes are independent and not controlled by the Main Mix (usually), and therefore can have different mixes.

The larger your console is, you usually have more "mix outputs", and the more mix outputs you have, the number of mixes you can create.

If your board only have 2 aux sends and a left and right output, you only have 4 mixes. If you 16 aux sends, 4 matrices, and LCR, you have (technically) 23 mixes, but some don't count the "C" as a mix (sometimes a mono sum...let's not get into the differences of LCR and LR +mono here guys...). There isn't really a limit (other than amp power/availability/budget/venue size/etc) of how many speakers can be run off of one board mix. The soundboard doesn't determine how many speakers can be run off of a mix, whether it be 2 or 200.

Also, some people won't count LR as two mixes, since usually you're mixing a LR mix in stereo, not dual mono, so it's "basically" one mix (for the sake of confusion, let's not get into nitty details about this, since that isn't what the OP asked...).

Furthermore, the sound board has no "knowledge" of what is connected to its outputs. (whether it be 2 speaker or 200 speakers...).


----------



## AlexD (Jul 12, 2009)

Ok. What if you want to send the signal to certain speakers in one cue but in a different cue you want to send it to different speakers?


----------



## AlexD (Jul 12, 2009)

Let me guess... You have to send it through the aux sends? If so I’m going to need a mixer with a lot of aux sends... Well, to do what I was planning.

Or is there a different way to do it and still have the ability to send the signal it to different locations?


----------



## marcusianl (Jul 12, 2009)

Might I ask what board you're using? I know on my LS9 (a digital board from Yamaha) I can set up which mixes each of my channels output to and quickly change them with the press of a button. This would be more difficult on an analog board as you'd have to patch the channels to different mixes or turn off the mix you didn't want to use for one cue then turn it back on and turn off the other for the next (I don't even think that would be feasible on a simple two speaker setup because you'd be left with one speaker at a time).


----------



## AlexD (Jul 12, 2009)

Well at the moment we have a rubbish mixer... the master fader is broken on it so we will be getting a new one. We will be using analogue because we can’t afford digital  

The mixer that I am thinking on Getting is a soundcraft LX7 ii 16 channel mixer.


----------



## Anonymous067 (Jul 12, 2009)

Or, you can have all the speaker cables run back to a patch panel (or makeshift one) and then switch the patch in between cues...
I've done this a lot.


----------



## marcusianl (Jul 12, 2009)

Yeah with an analog board I think patching is going to be the easiest solution. I don't know much about that mixer so I won't pretend to offer an on-board solution. Perhaps someone who has worked with such a device could offer some help? Otherwise patching, as William mentioned, is your best bet.


----------



## Anonymous067 (Jul 12, 2009)

AlexD said:


> Well at the moment we have a rubbish mixer...
> 
> The mixer that I am thinking on Getting is a soundcraft LX7 ii 16 channel mixer.



be glad you can afford anything....


----------



## AlexD (Jul 13, 2009)

Blah067 said:


> be glad you can afford anything....


 
I suppose but with a half broken mixer isn’t very good...


----------



## AlexD (Jul 13, 2009)

How would you do it through a digital board? Would you use the matrix? If so how dose the matrix work?


----------



## museav (Jul 13, 2009)

Alex, you might want to look at purchasing the Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook (Amazon.com: The Sound Reinforcement Handbook: Gary Davis, Ralph Jones: Books). You have a great deal of curiosity in many areas and this is probably a very good resource to answer some of your questions and perhaps generate others.


----------



## AlexD (Jul 13, 2009)

Oh right thanks ill check it out.


----------



## rwhealey (Jul 13, 2009)

If you're looking at the Lx7ii 16, check out the Yamaha 01V96. The prices are similar & I've heard good things about them. It'll save you lots of money on outboard gear - Compressors, EQ, FX Processors, that kind of stuff.

As far as using an analogue board, I would recommend using an AUX or group send. However, I'm on a Soundcraft MH3, so I've got enough to spare. Will you have time to repatch (walking around to the back of the board and plugging in new cables) for different cues? Do you have enough amp channels for all your effects speakers?


----------



## jkowtko (Jul 13, 2009)

Alex, going back to your original question about routing different cues to different speakers --

The first thing to understand is if your playback system has enough outputs to cover the number of speakers, or if it doesn't. 

If you have only two speakers, all playback devices will have two outputs. In this case all you have to do is configure the cues to Pan the output to L or R, or if your playback software allows, configure each cue to play only to L or to R. Each output from your playback device would plug into an input channel on your mixer, and that input channel would then be routed to only one speaker (using Pan control on the input channel strip). The mixer isn't doing much other than carrying each signal though independently to a specific speaker, and the moving of cues from one speaker to another is done by the playback device and software.

If you have more than two speakers, and you have a playback device that has more than two outputs, and you are running software that can configure each cue to go to any one or more of the outputs, then you would connect the board in a similar way as above -- each playback output connects to one mixer input, and each mixer input routes to a different board output ... for example, with four speakers you could use L, R, Aux1, Aux2.

My playback device is an M-Audio Delta1010, which has 8 outputs that I use actively and using the PC playback software I can send an audio cue to any combination of one or more of the 8 speakers available in the house. I have an LX7-32 purchased used for under $1k ... works great, nice clean sound 

If you have more than two speakers but your playback device only has two outputs, then you will have to use the mixer to change the output routing from cue to cue. This is a bit more difficult since you'll have to make mix adjustments on the board as you go ... but using the aux send and pan controls on your input channel strips you can direct the cues where you want, when you want. Before I bought the M-Audio interface I had a CD player as my playback device and had to manually direct the sound using the mixer controls ... it worked well except for the times when the transitions between cues were very fast.


----------



## AlexD (Jul 13, 2009)

Ah yes thank you. I guess I should have said that I was planning on using SCS as my playback software witch dose has an unlimited amount of outputs (I think). I am planning to get a similar system as what you have.

Thank you for the suggestion on a mixer I have been trying to look for a good one which would be better suited ill check it out


----------



## AlexD (Jul 13, 2009)

rwhealey said:


> If you're looking at the Lx7ii 16, check out the Yamaha 01V96. The prices are similar & I've heard good things about them.


 
The LX7ii 16 chanle mixer is about 600 pound and the Yamaha 01V96 is 2 grand... Have u goten mixed up on modles there? Or have I?


----------



## museav (Jul 13, 2009)

Since many lower price consoles are more limited on the auxes and their assignments, one thing with using aux sends is that you have to understand the difference between pre-fader and post-fader and between pre-EQ and post-EQ sends. These are really pretty simple in concept as the description pretty much says it all, the aux signal is taken either before (pre) or after (post) the channel EQ and before or after the channel fader.

On the LX7ii each channel has six aux sends available. All six sends are effectively post-EQ, thus any channel EQ will affect all aux sends. Aux sends 5 and 6 are fixed as post-fader, so the channel fader always affects the Aux 5 and Aux 6 send levels. Auxes 1 and 2 are switchable between pre and post fader as a pair, as are Auxes 3 and 4. When left as post-fader the channel fader affects the aux send levels, when set to pre-fader it does not.

So with the LX7ii you could have up to six outputs for surround type channels. However, keep in mind that the aux sends are also commonly used for assistive listening feeds, monitor sends, recording feeds, overflow audio signals (Lobby, Green Room, intercom Program, etc.), effects sends, aux fed subs and so on. It would be a bit unusual to not want or require at least a couple of aux sends for other purposes.

Group sends can be useful but the LX7ii unfortunately only allows you to assign channels to Groups in pairs, 1/2 or 3/4, and the Groups to the Main output as Groups 1 and 3 to left and Groups 2 and 4 to right. Thus you can assign a channel to Groups 1/2 and then adjust the relative assignment via the pan with hard left being all to Group 1 and hard right being all to Group 2 but you cannot discretely assign a channel to just one Group. This does limit the usefulness of the Groups. Also, since the LX7ii does not have matrix outputs, mute groups or VCAs, I would tend to use the Groups for similar purposes, for example putting all the mics on Groups 1/2 and all the SFX or music on Groups 3/4 or the leads on one group and chorus on another. That way you can do more easily do things like adjust all the SFX playback channels or the orchestra via one fader.

The point is really that simply having the number of inputs and outputs on a console is not always the same as having the right inputs and outputs. I almost always start a system design by drawing all the inputs and sources on the left side of a drawing and all the outputs or destinations on the right, then I can start filling in the pieces necessary to get a usable signal flow from left to right. That is part of what I mean when I keep suggesting focusing on the functional and operational aspects, you need to define the signal sources and destinations that are necessary to provide the desired functionality before you can start figuring out what equipment might be appropriate.


----------



## AlexD (Jul 13, 2009)

Ah thank you. That has cleared a lot up  I am starting on that list as u suggested. The really annoying thing is that I can’t get someone in to do this until 2 months... Because schools out and I can’t get in...


----------



## rwhealey (Jul 13, 2009)

AlexD said:


> The LX7ii 16 chanle mixer is about 600 pound and the Yamaha 01V96 is 2 grand... Have u goten mixed up on modles there? Or have I?



Hm. I was looking at this:
Soundcraft LX7ii16 16-Channel Mixer from zZounds.com!

vs

Yamaha 01V96 from zZounds.com!

Prices might be very different if you're not in the US, though.

I think the extra money is worth it, but if you don't have it, you don't have it. From all accounts, the Lx7ii is a pretty good mixer.


----------

