I actually found a limitation

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1

Ok, so I have had an I-Live for 2 years now and for the first time in that time I have actually run into a limitation that I didn’t expect.

I was mixing monitors, there were 8 stereo in ear sends.

IDR64 with 144 surface out front and IDR32 with T80 surface on monitors connected via ACE.

So the in ear mixes were all pretty much the same except each person just needed a little more of themselves in their mix.

So I thought, why don’t I just create 3 seperate mixes for drums, band and vocals and then route these to each in ear mix and add a bit more of each persons vocal on top.

Should be easy I thought.

First off i started with Auxes sub mixes and in ear mixes but then I discovered you can’t mix the output of one aux to another.

So then I thought I’d use groups for the sub mix, but that didn’t work either as groups are only on or off.

In the end I had to go back to Auxes, but because I was already using all 16 outputs on the IDR32, I had to route the sub mixes over ACE to the IDR64, come out of physical outputs on that and then bring them back into the IDR32 as analog inputs.

So here is my request…

It would be really handy to be able to route the output of an aux (or actually any mix for that matter) to a channel input without having to go out and come back in as analog.

Then you could mix that channel into each aux send to taste.

As it was I gave each person a PL10 remote and put the submixes on three knobs and each persons vocal on the 4th so they could mix their own monitors. That way I just concentrated on the submixes.

This worked so well I’d like to use it more often without the added annoyance of analog to digital conversions.

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Thats a good point…

When im multitrack recording via MADI i also like to record L+R mainmix but the only way i could figure to do this was by taking 2x short XLR cables and physical patching from 2 outputs to 2 inputs.

But then maybe i haven’t delved deeply enough into the advanced routing options of my MADI settings!

www.TotalLiveSound.com

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Thanks Toby, that’s one for the new features list… but would need to think carefully how one avoids accidentally creating feedback loops! At least if you are patching physical outputs to a stereo input you can see what you have done :smiley:

There are other games you could play using stereo matrices fed by a combination of auxes and groups, but the external patch is for now an effective and visible way of doing it. You could use the T80 connections instead of using up MixRack sockets for this.

And Graham, you can patch the LR outputs and in fact just about any signal to MADI using the OUTPUTS / Port B MADI screen.

Hope that helps,

Carey

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I think the initial idea of grouping and then sending to auxes is better. With that you can group signals for compression and EQ and then mix into an in-ear

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Hi Carey

Yes, you would have to be careful.

There are two ways you could do it…

Either be able to mix the output of an Aux to the input of another one which I think could be dangerous but extremely handy.

or

Be able to patch the output of an aux to an input which could then go anywhere.

In either case, you could use the routing screen to prevent accidents and by default I would expect that it would be set so you could not route an aux back on itself.

It should be something you explicitly turn on.

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Hi Toby - Could you have used 8 x St Matrix’s as the IEM outputs fed from 1 St Aux and 8 mono Aux’s? You could use the Stereo Aux 1 as the general stereo feed to all, then mix an individual mono Aux to each matrix (IEM Send) i.e St Aux 1 + mono Aux 1 to Matrix 1 out, St Aux 1 + Mono Aux 2 to Matrix 2 Out etc. This still has limitations such as no full stereo cability for the individual aux’s but may have worked as the mono portion is just for variations to each Stereo IEM mix - normally vocals etc so may have been OK? I use a similar analogue set up in the Studio for headphone mix’s.

Richard

IDR48/T112

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Hi Richard

Yes, did think about doing something like that, but it gets to the point where its easier to just create individual mixes in each aux in that case.

It wasn’t too much of a hassle to come out and come back in, but given its probably well within the capability of the hardware it would have been nice to do the routing internally.

Cheers

Toby