ACTIVE SUMMING MIXERS IN THE STUDIO PART 2

So you have decided to incorporate a Summing mixer in your setup.¡Congratulations!. In my opinion a Summing Mixer  is a piece of gear that makes part of a whole global working strategy in a studio.

I think this because very often when you are a music composer/producer you have to address both worlds: composing, jamming with your gear, record, and finally mix all the pices together. Often all these tasks are supperposed one over the other, making things a bit more confusing.

The first two pieces of gear you have to think about, before a summing mixer, are a patchbay and an audio interface. But for a moment let's keep things a bit simpler, with just an audio interface. We will complicate things later...

The audio interface is your hub. With as many inputs and outputs as you need so you can connect all the outputs of your synths, drum machines, hardware reverbs, multieffects, delays to the inputs of your audio interface.

And with as many outputs so you can connect the inputs of your hardware reverbs multieffects, delays to the outputs of your audio interface.

Once you have made these external hardware connections, you can connect the rest of your outputs of your audio interface to the Summing Mixer Inputs.

Finally, connect the output of your summing mixer to a pair of inputs of your audio interface. Many summing mixers feature multed outputs. This second pair of multed outputs are usually directed to an external monitor controller.

Obviously, to make all these connections you need an audio interface with at least 16 inputs/outputs minimum. Even better with 24 I/O or 32 I/O. Fortunately today there are some brands offering this kind of audio interfaces:

Cymatic audio Utrack24 (24in/24 out), Presonus Quantum 4848 (32in/32out + 16 ADAT). Ferrofish Pulse16 (16in /16out) or A32 (32in/32out), or Antelope audio Orion 32+ (32in/32out), and Lynx studio Aurora 16 (16in/16out), on the high end... many prices!! On a budget, you can combine an 8 in / 8 out audio interface  with an ADAT interface like the behringer ADA8200, to have 16in/16 out.

And now comes the Patchbay. 

It is a piece of gear that helps you organize your connections, and add flexibility to your setup. If you want to process the output of a synth through a filter or modulator or fx, a patchbay can help you reorganize your connections by just switching some jacks, in a simmilar way as connections are made in modular synths, but without the spaghetti mess...:)

On a patchbay you have two rows.:

On the rear upper row are attached the outputs of your gear: Synths, drum machines, fx outs, reverbs, delays, and interface outputs. 

On the rear lower row, the inputs of your gear / fx  reverbs, delays,and interface inputs.

Once done these basic connections on the rear side of the patchbay, you can steer your signals from a source to a destination, by making patch connections with patch cords on the front side of the patchbay.

Patchbays offer 3 or 4 ways of making the connections between the upper and lower row of jacks.

1. Normalled connection.

This is the default connection any patchbay offers. You connect on the Rear upper row the output of a synth and below, the input of another gear.  Inserting a patch cable in the Front panel (either input or output) will break the connection between upper and lower row.

2. Half normalled connection.

The same as the normalled connection, but inserting a patch cable in the top row will not break the connection from top to bottom row. Otherwise, a connection made in the front lower row will break the connection between bottom and top row.

3. Isolated connection

When you buy a patchbay the first time, by default all jacks are placed in factory to perform Normalled or half normalled connections. If you want to make isolated connections (useful for external fx gear, reverbs and delays and save space), you have to disassemble the front panel, pull out a pair or as many cards of jacks and turn them the other way around, this means the jack you see at the upper rear row of the patchbay will appear at the front  lower row of the patchbay.

Well, for this second article we have covered the most important details on connections and organisation to fit your workflow. This is really the keyword: WORKFLOW.

In  the next article i will talk about DAWS, channels, groups, external gear, and daw controllers.

K. Azeli CEO and Designer.

More info on patchbays: https://www.neutrik.com/en/product/nys-spp-l1