Author Topic: Mixers, compressors and graphic equalisers... (Read 130 times)

rogertvr · « **on:** January 30, 2005, 07:30:22 AM »

I'm in a bit of a quandry at the moment. Allow me to explain...

At present, my set-up is basically a sixteen channel mixer, and a rack mounted compressor that runs two channels (dual mono) that are connected to two of the channel inserts on the mixer. I use one channel for my passive basses and one for my active basses. The rest are used for keyboards.

The main output from the mixer is routed to my Trace Elliot head, where there is an overall gain control, followed by an 11 band graphic, a noise reduction section and then the power amp output.

The keyboards share this set-up which is far from ideal, but they don't get that much use and due to chronic and total lack of space, I have no other way of amplifying them. So forget them for the purposes of my following question as I can EQ them sufficiently for my requirements using the EQ that is available on the mixer.

I'm considering buying a rack mounted graphic to go with my compressor. What I'd like to do is run the graphic in dual mono along with the compressor and turn off the graphic on the Trace Elliot. This will give me far more control over the sound of my basses as I can EQ the passive and active ones separately - at the moment it's all set to the lowest common denominator and I know that it can be much better. Whatever the keyboards sound like I can live with.

I am assuming that the graphic would sit in series in both of the channel insert paths. Does it go before or after the compressor though?

I'm sure it sounds like a pretty dopey and obvious question but any help gladly appreciated before I part with any money!

Cheers,

Rog

adriaan · « **Reply #1 on:** January 30, 2005, 12:04:44 PM »

Haven't looked at mixers in any detail for about a zillion years, but don't some of them have the option for the aux send to be pre or post EQ? If yours has, you could put the compressor in the aux loop and go crazy trying out all kinds of settings for EQ and compressor, either way around.

HIH,
Adriaan

dgcarbu · « **Reply #2 on:** January 30, 2005, 12:44:03 PM »

Rog,

It sounds like you know what you're doing. As far as the order of the compressor vs. graphic, just think of them as stomp boxes, it really doesn't matter what order they're in in your particular case. All you're doing is adding another effects processor into the loop. I agree that it's less than ideal, but at least you are able to somewhat isolate the keyboards from the basses on the EQ side of things. Enjoy!

Peace,
Darrell

adriaan · « **Reply #3 on:** January 30, 2005, 01:18:00 PM »

If you're using compression as an effect (IOW so much that you can really hear it) and you're boosting certain frequencies, then I would imagine it could make quite a bit of difference which effect comes first. It could also tell you that perhaps to a degree you might be using one effect to compensate for the other.