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Smallest Passive Mixer with 2 Aux Sends

J

Johnnyglass

Guest
Apr 14, 2017
13
19
#1
Hey all, looking for some advice here. I play 3 times a week in Austin at a venue where I go direct with my SansAmp. I've always used a wedge for my monitors. My fiance just got me some SE425s a few weeks ago, and just got my custom molds in yesterday. Here's the conundrum I'm having.

I'd like to get rid of my wedge and the drummer's wedge which would free up a bunch of space for us in the back of the stage. I'm not wireless on my bass, so I'm not concerned with wireless IEMs but here's what I want to do.

I'm looking for the smallest mixer I can find that has at least 3 channels with 2 XLR inputs, and 2 Aux Sends, along with per channel panning. Basically, I'm going to plug my sansamp into one channel, my vocal mic into the other, and pan each to a side. Send the L/R outs to the house, and take an unpowered monitor feed via 1/4" and plug it into channel 3. Have 1 Aux to plug my IEMs into, and have another Aux that my drummer can plug his IEMs into, and we can control our mix in the back of the house. Oh, and if it has 1/4" Main Outs, that'd be a huge plus. Does that make sense?

Ideally, I'd like something I could put on a pedal board with my SansAmp Programmable BDDI, my Spectracomp, my TU-2, and my envelope filter.

Thoughts? Ideas? Am I completely out of my mind here? Thanks in advance.
 
#2
The only issue I see with your approach is that is takes control of your DI feed away from FOH.
When you "control your mix", you MIGHT be changing the gain settings on your own mixer, which would impact the FOH feed levels.
As long as you don't change the input gain and FOH output levels (pre-fader send?) it should work.
However, your sans amp should have BOTH XLR out and a direct out/passthru?

Keep the XLR going to FOH and put the direct out/pass-thru feed into the mixer. You can do whatever you want with the mixer at that point!
Behringer Xenyx 1202 Mixer
 
#3
I think I see what you're trying to do here. In theory it could work but may not work the way you want in practice.

Your gain structure on the submixer must be set up perfectly to get adequate signal to the front of house.

The sub mixer we'll need to have two auxiliary sends that can be set pre fader. If they are post fader then you would have to turn up the fador on Channel 3 just to get signal to the auxilary sends and that means you'll be sending that monitor mix back out to front of house what you don't want.

Another issue is you may have electrical grounding issues between your mixer and the front-of-house mixer. That's one of the reasons why most concerts use a splitter snake with isolated outputs to send to the monitor board.

As far as which products could meet your needs, I doubt there is a low channel count mixer with two pre fader auxilary sends on the market. You probably have to go to an 8-channel count or higher to get that kind of feature.
Johnnyglass said:
Hey all, looking for some advice here. I play 3 times a week in Austin at a venue where I go direct with my SansAmp. I've always used a wedge for my monitors. My fiance just got me some SE425s a few weeks ago, and just got my custom molds in yesterday. Here's the conundrum I'm having.

I'd like to get rid of my wedge and the drummer's wedge which would free up a bunch of space for us in the back of the stage. I'm not wireless on my bass, so I'm not concerned with wireless IEMs but here's what I want to do.

I'm looking for the smallest mixer I can find that has at least 3 channels with 2 XLR inputs, and 2 Aux Sends, along with per channel panning. Basically, I'm going to plug my sansamp into one channel, my vocal mic into the other, and pan each to a side. Send the L/R outs to the house, and take an unpowered monitor feed via 1/4" and plug it into channel 3. Have 1 Aux to plug my IEMs into, and have another Aux that my drummer can plug his IEMs into, and we can control our mix in the back of the house. Oh, and if it has 1/4" Main Outs, that'd be a huge plus. Does that make sense?

Ideally, I'd like something I could put on a pedal board with my SansAmp Programmable BDDI, my Spectracomp, my TU-2, and my envelope filter.

Thoughts? Ideas? Am I completely out of my mind here? Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
 
#4
I think you are on the right track, but you can greatly simplify sending things to FOH...

You need some XLR splitters like these, available at GC and the other usual suspects....
splitter.jpg

This is simply an adapter with one female XLR wired to two male XLRs, splitting the signal. You'll need one for each input to your mixer (in my case, I need one for bass, one for kick, one for snare and hat, sometimes one for keys). Connect your bass, vocal, and anything else you want control of into the splitters. Connect one side of the splitter to your mixer. Connect the other side of the splitter (via another mic cable) to the FOH mixer. Get a send of some kind from FOH and connect it to your mixer. This can be a pre-fade mix (better to control what you get from FOH) or at least, one of the house feeds from the mixer. This way, THERE'S NO NEED FOR YOU TO SEND YOUR LEFT AND RIGHT MIX TO FOH. And you don't need to worry about affecting your levels going to FOH. You can feed your IEMs with the left and right from your mixer and still use a pre-fade aux send to your drummer's ears (or monitor). And you are mixing your own IEM mix!

This is a lot easier to implement that it looks or sounds. And it will solve the dilemma of affecting your input signal to FOH.

I use one of these mixers. It's an Alto ZMX122 FX mixer. $120 new, some used for $70 at GC. I have two of them, one for a practice mixer, and another for gigging when I need it....

AltoMixer.jpg


Good luck.
 
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#10
i'm gonna go with @Geri O on this one :)

+1 to just splitting the signal; trying to send the FOH something that's already been through your own mixer is a recipe for problems.

besides, you don't even need the splitter cable for your bass; sansamp XLR goes to the house, sansamp 1/4" goes to your own mixer, easy peasy.

the rolls 351 that @elgecko linked is designed for this specific job! it takes an instrument, a vocal mic and a monitor feed and "passes through" the vocal and instrument feeds unaffected to FOH.

the drummer can get his own cheap notebook mixer and do the same thing.
 
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#11
I do a similar thing to what you are trying to do. Use the 1/4 out from your Sansamp to the mixer, and get a $30 passive splutter box for your mic that has a phase switch, so if you are around your vocal into a mix that already has your vocal in it, it doesn't cancel it out.

I use a Yamaha MG06.
Channel 1 my vox
Channel 2 for a mic I have over the drums
Channel 3 for my bass
Channel for a FOH or six sends.

Channel 1 & 2 have mic pres,
Channel 3 & 4 are stereo line level channels.

imgres
 

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