bloodyMary Posted July 26, 2009 Share Posted July 26, 2009 My band needs some kind of device which will allow every musician to dial his own headphone mix. No need to go wireless. Requirements are - 10-12 inputs, 6 stereo outputs, built-in FX or send/return would be great. The price is very important, too. No $$$$ Hear Tech systems for us.. Currently we're using a Mackie HMX-56, which is a great device (a monitor matrix with 6 inputs and 6 stereo outputs, each musician dials his mix), but hasn't got enough channels for our expanding band. I was thinking of getting another HMX-56, but they're almost impossible to get a hold of. Another solution could be a splitter and 6 small mixers. I was looking for a 6-way 12 channel splitter, and I guess there's no such thing, and it'd be pretty expensive to build. Third option I was thinking of - get 5 mixers with direct outs and link them in a serial manner (instruments go into the first mixer, which sends them through direct outputs into the second mixer and so on). But it seems pretty awkward and expensive, too (couldn't find a cheap mixer with 10-12 direct outs. Found an Alesis and Behringer rack models with 8 direct outs, which would barely cut it and allow zero room for expansion). So, any ideas for me? Stage: MOX6, V-machine, and Roland AX7 Rolls PM351 for IEMs. Home/recording: Roland FP4, a few guitars Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MonksDream Posted July 26, 2009 Share Posted July 26, 2009 My band needs some kind of device which will allow every musician to dial his own headphone mix. No need to go wireless. Requirements are - 10-12 inputs, 6 stereo outputs, built-in FX or send/return would be great. The price is very important, too. No $$$$ Hear Tech systems for us.. Sounds like you need a JamHub! Instrumentation is meaningless - a song either stands on its own merit, or it requires bells and whistles to cover its lack of adequacy, much less quality. - kanker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bloodyMary Posted July 26, 2009 Author Share Posted July 26, 2009 Wow, thanks! It's not shipping just yet, but seems like an ideal solution - simple enough for the bass player to figure it out, has plenty of I/O - wow, stereo input AND a mic input for everyone, internal effects, and even remote controls! And for a great price, too. I'm so buying it! Stage: MOX6, V-machine, and Roland AX7 Rolls PM351 for IEMs. Home/recording: Roland FP4, a few guitars Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Byrdman Posted July 26, 2009 Share Posted July 26, 2009 So your existing system is 6x6 but you need 12x6. A mixer with four subs and a couple of auxes should work well. Because of the 6 line limit on your existing gear you will have to premix some stuff but having everyone dink with 12 lines of input is going to consume bunches of everybody's time in any case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bloodyMary Posted July 26, 2009 Author Share Posted July 26, 2009 Byrdman, do you have an advice on what to premix, and possibly which (type of) mixer to get? Regarding the input channels, I need to have: guitar bass 3 vocals keys in stereo drums in stereo click track maybe 2nd guitar down the road How is it usually done? Stage: MOX6, V-machine, and Roland AX7 Rolls PM351 for IEMs. Home/recording: Roland FP4, a few guitars Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MRkeys Posted July 26, 2009 Share Posted July 26, 2009 How about http://www.allen-heath.com/US/wz312m.asp Nord Electro 3... Korg CX3... Leslie 145... Wurlitzer 200a... Juno 106... Roland RD170... DS88 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillWelcome Home Studios Posted July 26, 2009 Share Posted July 26, 2009 Why do the keys and drums have to be stereo in the monitors? Go for a separate monitor rig. Hear has a cheap system, but you need to baby it a bit....I've seen a lot of broken ones in utility trunks. Aviom has a better rig. It goes up in price from there, gets kinda scary. "I believe that entertainment can aspire to be art, and can become art, but if you set out to make art you're an idiot." Steve Martin Show business: we're all here because we're not all there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Byrdman Posted July 26, 2009 Share Posted July 26, 2009 How about http://www.allen-heath.com/US/wz312m.asp That is such a pretty mixer and if you can afford $2000 undoubtedly worth the money. It looks to me like you will be limited to a mono FOH mix unless you use the inbuilt mic splitters and drive a separate FOH mixer, I looked up the HMX-56 and I see its only 6 ins, not 12. There is an effects return which you can use as an extra in. Two of the ins are a stero pair with apparently no per channel balance control. So if you put house mix on the stereo pair you have five additional channels to play with. You are probably going to need to burn one for click unless the drummer is ok with that on a drum channel. You may be able to get away with one extra vocal channel. You can get reverb onto the vocals by putting the reverb back through a channel on your main board and mixing it into the vocal aux send. (You generally want more reverb in the headphones than in the FOH mix). That would allow your bass, guitar and keys to all get "more me". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J. Dan Posted July 27, 2009 Share Posted July 27, 2009 Somebody beat me to the punch on the A&H mixer. It all depends on your setup. When we started we got the MixWizard 16ch board for $999, plus a splitter snake - which was another $1200 or so. Now the good news is, when the mixer started to crap out 5 yrs later after weekly gigging, it was an additional $999, with the same snake. So the question is do you need a splitter snake. If you do, the monitor mixer is a great deal because it's basically a 16 channel splitter plus monitor mixer. If you don't need it, the MixWizard3 16:2 is a 16 ch mixer with 6 sends which, with proper jumper settings, can offer 6 independant pre-fader monitor mixes. That's how we use it. $999. Of course there's the $1200 splitter, the $600 IEM wireless systems times 4, the 5 sets of IEM's ranging from $99 to $600 ea. Not to mention the rack and other wiring and hardware - it ain't cheap... but let me tell you, it's WELL WORTH IT! Dan Acoustic/Electric stringed instruments ranging from 4 to 230 strings, hammered, picked, fingered, slapped, and plucked. Analog and Digital Electronic instruments, reeds, and throat/mouth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bloodyMary Posted July 27, 2009 Author Share Posted July 27, 2009 That A&H mixer looks like a decent piece of equipment, but is out of my budget (which isn't really defined, but I know that the band won't agree to spend $2K on a mixer). Plus we'll need heapdhone amplifiers to compliment it. Hear Tech system will also cost $2k, for 6 people. Come on, I've bought the Mackie HMX for 120 bucks, and it does a fine job. Now I need twice the input channels and have to spend 20 times more money? Doesn't make sense to me (and for my cheap **s band members). This new JamHub thing does exactly what I need, costs $500, but it's not shipping yet, so it's not really an option for now.. Stage: MOX6, V-machine, and Roland AX7 Rolls PM351 for IEMs. Home/recording: Roland FP4, a few guitars Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bloodyMary Posted July 27, 2009 Author Share Posted July 27, 2009 [quote=Byrdman I looked up the HMX-56 and I see its only 6 ins, not 12. There is an effects return which you can use as an extra in. Two of the ins are a stero pair with apparently no per channel balance control. So if you put house mix on the stereo pair you have five additional channels to play with. You are probably going to need to burn one for click unless the drummer is ok with that on a drum channel. You may be able to get away with one extra vocal channel. You can get reverb onto the vocals by putting the reverb back through a channel on your main board and mixing it into the vocal aux send. (You generally want more reverb in the headphones than in the FOH mix). That would allow your bass, guitar and keys to all get "more me". Yeah, the Mackei was enough until now - we're expanding the band (adding another singer/guitarist, also decided to use drum triggers, before that we just let the drums bleed acoustically into the IEMS). I thought about making a mix and then using the Mackie as a 'more me' device, but the thing is, someone's gonna be left out - there are 5 inputs on this thing (4 mono, one stereo return, not counting the main in) and 6 musicians+ click. So 2 musicians won't have 'more me'. The drummer might be OK with that, but the rest will whine. Stage: MOX6, V-machine, and Roland AX7 Rolls PM351 for IEMs. Home/recording: Roland FP4, a few guitars Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bloodyMary Posted July 27, 2009 Author Share Posted July 27, 2009 Anyway, these are all very good suggestions, keep 'em coming! I'll talk to the band, maybe convince these cheap b@stards to spend the 2 grand and get a pro system. 80s-LZ, do you have mono mixes for the band? My guitarsit keeps complaining about mono, he says it's tiring for him to listen to. He needs stereo keys, and reverb on guitars/vocals, to 'feel the space'. Stage: MOX6, V-machine, and Roland AX7 Rolls PM351 for IEMs. Home/recording: Roland FP4, a few guitars Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J. Dan Posted July 27, 2009 Share Posted July 27, 2009 We're all mono. 15 channels plus click (16 total) and 5 sends for our monitor mixes. Drop a snake for FOH for the 15 channels. Our IEM transmitters are mono, so even if we were mixing stereo, we couldn't get it without a more expensive system. Dan Acoustic/Electric stringed instruments ranging from 4 to 230 strings, hammered, picked, fingered, slapped, and plucked. Analog and Digital Electronic instruments, reeds, and throat/mouth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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