Curious if anyone has done this and ran into any limitations?
The (general) idea:
Patch channel 1 to slink 1 (lead vox)
Patch channel 2 to slink1 (lead vox)
Main Mix - Channel 1 ON, Channel 2 OFF
Aux Mix (Broadcast) - Channel 1 OFF, Channel 2 ON
Channel 1 goes to FOH. Channel 2 goes to aux mix and can now have it’s own EQ and compression separate from the FOH mix. Having them on separate channels I can now have different send levels for the reverb.
Thoughts?
You absolutely can duplicate channels like that. Most people will put all the FOH channels together (1-24 for example) and then put the broadcast channels together (25-48 for example), but that is just personal preference.
The duplicated channels will share the preamp settings (gain, polarity, phantom power etc), but the rest of the channel processing would be unique to each channel so you can customize the gates, EQ, compression, FX, etc on the “FOH channel” and do something completely different on the “Broadcast channel.”
I think many of us have done this already. The idea comes in handy if you need to apply EQ to monitor mixes that differs from the need in the main mix.
Mostly I put the split channels on a dedicated layer.
Main limitation is channel count.
And of course, you could also duplicate only the channels where you actually need separate processing.
And since you brought this up:
Keep in mind that for a separate second mix, you would also need to set up a second reverb engine.
Otherwise, you could send signals to the reverb from the both input channels, but you would always only be able to return the same FX mix.
You’re right, thanks!
Didn’t think they would share the same gain. Thank you, sir!
They are shared because they are sharing the same physical preamp. There is only one preamp per physical analog input. If you plug a mic into an analog input and then assign a that mic to two different channels, they have to share the same analog preamp because there is one mic plugged into one analog input. It is split into the two channels AFTER the analog preamp.
The only way not to share the preamps is to split the source BEFORE the analog input/preamp. To do that, you need to split each source/mic into two analog outputs before the console. This isn’t that unusual and is often done with an “analog splitter” that allows the same source to be split into multiple audio signals - each one unique/separate from the other. Usually the output of an analog splitter goes to two different consoles (a FOH console and a broadcast console), but there is no reason a single console could have both sources coming into it (assuming the console had enough physical analog inputs and channels to support both the FOH and broadcast roles).
If you can do everything you want with an internal split, why would you want separate preamp gains? The preamp gain level should be a function of the input level.
In theory, yes, but in practice it often looks different.
For example, a FOH engineer and a broadcast engineer might have completely different views on their ideal gain level, and each wants to set it according to their needs and possibly even adjust it during the show.
And that’s simply not possible with this type of digital splitting.
So, compromises usually have to be made, and, for example, the trim controls used instead.
I disagree. The preamp levels should not be used to mix. They should be set at the maximum safe level, with sufficient overhead, so full dynamic range is achieved. Whatever happens after that is up to the specific need.
I can only repeat myself once more:
I get what you are saying and on “paper” that is a great theory. In “real life” it isn’t that cut and dry. Take FOH and Broadcast uses for example. Broadcast generally requires much higher gain levels than FOH does to hit the optimal broadcast output levels. So the “optimal” gain settings to be “mixing at unity” is very different between the two. Obviously no one is suggesting that you mix with your preamp gain, but the various possible use cases for audio sometimes require very different gain settings.