How To Use an Audio Mixer | Buttons, Knobs, & Faders

by the end of this video you'll feel more prepared to use any mixer because the features and signal flow i'm about to show you are shared by almost every mixer in existence a mixer will typically have between 2 and 48 input channels and sometimes even more than that this particular mixer has 10 mic line inputs each input passes through one of the channel strips on the mixing surface let's dive deeper into one of these channel strips the signal flows from the top of the channel strip to the bottom at the top we'll almost always see a preamp gain knob the preamp gain knob allows us to amplify the signal from a microphone or another input source up to line level you'll often find a few buttons at the top of the channel strip as well this mixer has an instrument button which switches the input impedance by default the inputs are set for low impedance line or microphone inputs and engaging the instrument button would allow you to connect an electric bass or guitar directly there's also a low cut button sometimes called hpf for high pass filter this button engages a filter that reduces frequencies below the cutoff frequency which is 100 hertz in this case that can be helpful for removing unnecessary low frequency energy and inputs like vocals that don't really go down past 100 hertz anyway some mixers will also have a button that reverses the polarity of the signal this would invert the audio wave by turning the positives into negatives and the negatives into positives as we move down to the green knob we find a compressor this is a very basic compressor with only one knob but you'll often find more advanced compressors on consoles a compressor is useful when you want to reduce the difference between the loud parts of a signal and the quiet parts of a signal if the quiet parts are too quiet and the loud parts are too loud you can use a compressor to turn the loud parts down and then turn everything up together effectively reducing the dynamic range compressors fall within the category of dynamics processing because they affect the dynamic range of the signal and you might also find additional dynamics processors like a gate on your channel strip which would actively reduce the signal when the signal level drops below a certain point the eq or equalizer section allows for shaping the frequency balance of the signal this eq has three bands high mid and low the high section is a high shelf the low section is a low shelf and the mid section is a bell curve with a variable frequency knob the gain knob for each band is currently set to the center or 0 db which means that the eq filters aren't doing anything but you can turn the frequencies in each band up or down by adjusting the gain knob after the eq section we come to the auxiliary sense the aux sends offer a way to send the signal from this channel to the aux outputs found on the back of the mixer auxes can be useful for creating mixers for the musicians on stage creating separate mixes for recording or streams or really anything else you can imagine the pan knob is set to center by default but adjusting it to the left or to the right will send more or less signal to the left or right speaker and this is useful for creating space and dimension in the mix by placing the instruments in a specific spot between the two speakers this particular mixer is called the tascam model 12. i'll leave a link for you in the description below it's an all-in-one mixer interface and portable recorder this record button engages the record arm on the channel and when it's engaged the channel will be recorded this isn't a typical function of the mixer but it is one of my favorite features of the tascam model 12. next we find the mute button and fader which control the level of this channel in the main mix setting the fader to zero db or unity gain will allow the signal to pass through without being boosted or cut on many consoles there will be routing buttons like these that send the channel to groups or different outputs pressing the main button sends this channel to the main fader pressing the sub button sends this channel to the sub fader the main fader signal comes out of the main outputs on the back while the sub fader signal comes out of the sub outputs the solo button at the bottom of the channel will spotlight only that signal in the headphones that way you can make adjustments to that signal without the distraction of hearing the other signals at the same time in the next video we'll walk through the various types of outputs on your mixer so go ahead and hit the like button on this video and i'll see you over there

Channel: Audio University

Views: 58,866

Keywords: audio mixer, mixer, mixing console, audio mixer tutorial, audio mixer setup, channel strip, mixer knobs explained, how to use an audio mixer, audio mixing console, audio university mixing console tutorial, audio mixer review, soundboard tutorial, sound mixer, sound mixer tutorial, sound mixer how to use, audio mixer how to use, how audio mixer works, how to use sound mixer, how to use soundboard, audio mixer setup diagram, analog mixer, analog mixer tutorial

Id: 86UPI5p6hJ4

Length: 4min 17sec (257 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 23 2022