We’ve used our ZED 428 to reinforce sound in our church building, but now we’re sending out to Zoom users also via a computer on the USB output.
I’m the organist - not an audio tech - but did some reading to try and get decent level for my instrument.
The pipe organ doesn’t need a mic for ‘the house’ - it already fills the room - but it is necessary for the broadcast feed.
I figured that using the Matrix was the smartest way to allow levels to be controlled.
Three vocal mics on various channels are assigned to the main L-R (left-right) bus.
I have set up a condenser mic for the organ on channel 7 as the sole user of the route marked “1-2”.
My understanding is that the operator can work the faders for the mics and achieve a relative mix that will work for both destinations - ‘house’ and broadcast Zoom transmission via USB. The organ can be mixed in solely to the USB mix using the matrix along with its channel strip.
My question is how to make this work simply. Apart from the “M” bus, everything seems to be set up for potential stereo use. As things stand, I’m faced with possibly four controls to alter where I’d prefer one.
You can refer to the help sheet I drew up (Zoom and the Matrix.jpg). My note in green is the key question here: “It MAY be possible to use fewer knobs and still get strong output - we’ll look into that!” The two matrix outputs are both sent to the USB output (MTX 1-2); you can’t select just one of them. And most of the channels are prefigured as pairs. If I take a naive approach, with all Pan controls at 12 o’clock, then I might have four matrix controls to manipulate for each group. In my help sheet, I’ve suggested that if we need more organ in the mix, we manipulate the Group 1 / Matrix 1 level, then match it for the other three combinations of (Group 1 or 2) * (Matrix 1 or 2).
I guess I could use the Mono (M) bus for the organ ‘group’? In that case, we’d have only the Matrix 1 * Matrix 2 duality to deal with. Is it true that to get maximum signal to the computer, I would need to duplicate my Matrix 1 setting for each channel to the Matrix 2 column? Or is it less a sum than a ratio? (If Matrix 2 levels are all set to zero [or whatever], will Matrix 1 supply the full available signal bandwidth to the USB interface?)
I’m interested in pursuing my understanding of the paired channels thing, so let’s say we stay with the current assignment of the organ to channels “1-2”. (In any case, I suppose this applies to the main “L-R” feed.)
First, I understand that “1-2” is managed via Pan. If I want to use only one of channels 1 and 2, I could Pan the control all the way to one side. I had a kind of success here, but found that I concentrated signal by panning Channel 7 all the way to the right (which is marked “Even”). I thought that the underlying design for left-right output had to do with oddness or evenness of the channel numbers - am I wrong here? Once again, do I help things by panning thus - does this actually deliver the same total signal to the USB destination via the matrix than if I’d had the Pan set to 12 o’clock and the Group “2” levels in the matrix matched?
We don’t actually use stereo in the house with our L-R setup. I think all the mics are Panned to 12 o’clock. Does that mean I must attend to Matrix 2 on the assumption that there’s an “L-R” stereo signal being sent to the USB via MTX1-2?
