What do U do for Headphone Mixes

JoHoozaFats... · 21st June 2003

I've been tracking thru my Mackie CR 1604 into a Behringer MultiCom into my Motu 1224. OK, not the greatest sognal chaib, but...

I need to get seperate headphone mixes to my players. I;ve got the headphone out of my board into a headphone amp.

How does one use Aux sends for headphone mixes? Or rather, should I take the 8 outs of the MOTU into another mixer?

Help!!!

littledog · 21st June 2003

How many different cue mixes do you need to create? And going to how many musicians? Do you want them to be stereo or mono?

An easy way to set up cue mixes is to assign the different outputs on the Motu to instrument groups (called "stems"). For example, drums on output 1-2, bass on 3, guitars 4-5, vox 6, etc. Instruments that use pairs of outputs are ones where you want to hear a stereo image.

Run them back into extra line inputs on either your Mackie (if you aren't using most of the channels and auxes for tracking) or a seperate mixer. Then you can use your aux sends as either seperate mono mixes, or in pairs for stereo mixes. They should be prefader sends so that whatever you do on the faders, including soloing or muting an instrument, won't affect what the musicians are hearing in their headphones. If you are using, e.g., Auxes 1-2, on the stereo tracks use Aux 1 only on the left half and Aux 2 only on the right half of the channel pair. On mono channels set Aux 1 and Aux 2 to the same level, or the image won't be centered in the headphones.

There should be output jacks on your mixer for each aux send (usually 1/4"). Simply take a cable and run it to a headphone preamp that is set up in the playing area.

Chae Ham · 21st June 2003

It seems like a lot of people like the furman options for headphone distribution.
What's made our lives a lot easier is this new little booger called the <a href="http://www.prodigy-pro.com/SearchResult.aspx?CategoryID=11">Hear Back System</a>

Since we use ProTools, we send from subgroups: DrumSub(stereo), Guitars, Vocals, Bass, Keys, etc... up to 8 channels out to the hear back mixers so the everyone in the live room can dial in their own mixes. It's eliminated A LOT of the cue mix tweaking from the control room, but you still get the occasional request to turn an individual mic down/up.

Hope that helps!

stuntmixer · 21st June 2003

I use the smaller Furman unit with as many as five distribution boxes depending on how many folks need a "ME" knob.

JoHoozaFats... · 21st June 2003

Hey Littledog-

yeah, i figured out the extra mixer trick. So i've got the aux sends (1-6) going into a little behringer. The main outs (which are connected via a Y cable) feeds the 1/4" which feed to the other end of the Whirlwind breakout box (16 xlr and 4 1/4")

This may seems like it may work. Except I can only give one headphone mix. For example, if the bass player needs more bass but less guitar, i can only seem to find the happy medium. ( i'm using an ART headphone amp to feed the musicians)

Is there a way around this?

and Chae - I looked at the Hear back system, but cant seem to figure it out. Does it go on the musician side or engineer side?

davemc · 21st June 2003

I send 4 pre-fader auxes to 4 outs on the 96io in PT(direct out)
One stereo set go to a pair of Tannoys for monitors in teh band room, I pan left and right the players own instrument.
The other stereo pair go to a amp powering the headphones via tie lines. Both of these headphones are mono, so the drummer and vocalist can have what ever they want in there side of the mix. Best thing is its recallable in the session..

Thought about a furman although need more outs..

Chae Ham · 21st June 2003

Quote:

Originally posted by JoHoozaFats...
Chae - I looked at the Hear back system, but cant seem to figure it out. Does it go on the musician side or engineer side?

Both.
A basic Hear Back system consists of a Hub (to keep in the control room) and personal Mixers (for the musicians in the live room) connected using standard CAT5E cables. A single Hub supplies signal and power to a maximum of eight Mixers--that's 8, 8-channel mixes. If that’s not enough, the Hubs can be daisy-chained for virtually unlimited system size.

This might shed some light on the mystery: <a href="http://www.prodigy-pro.com/specs/systemdiagrams.htm">SYSTEM DIAGRAMS</a>

Some of the diagrams show the "Talk Back System" incorporated with the Hear Back System, so just ignore that if that's not what you need.

Hope that helps! If you have any questions let me know.

vodka gimli · 21st June 2003

We bought several of the little Behringer mixers as More Me boxes. Every one gets the stereo 2 mix that I hear in the control room (I could give them a separate Aux mix, but I like to hear what they are hearing) and can EQ both the 2 mix and their More Me input, and control the volume of both.

The bassist plugs his preamp into a DI and I take the 1/4" out of the DI to his Behringer. Same with Keys. The guitarist gets a second mic on his cabinet, into the Behringer XLR to give him control of his signal to his phones. Drummer has a M88 over his shoulder into his mixer. Everyone can turn themselves up versus the 2 mix from me.

Anyone with a line level signal goes into the 1/4 ins on the Behringer, anyone mic'ed gets a second mic or a feed from any onboard piezo. Works great.

Vocals are cut as scratch vocals so singer gets 2 mix only. When keeper vocals are tracked, they get whatever they want from me. The Behringer boxes are around $60.00 each.

littledog · 21st June 2003

Quote:

Originally posted by JoHoozaFats...

This may seems like it may work. Except I can only give one headphone mix. For example, if the bass player needs more bass but less guitar, i can only seem to find the happy medium. ( i'm using an ART headphone amp to feed the musicians)

Is there a way around this?

Here's how to do it without buying a fairly expensive specialized cue mix system:

If you want stereo cue mixes, you'll need a mixer with four aux sends, preferably prefader. If you only have two prefader sends available, you can still create seperate cue mixes, but they'll be mono.

Then you'll need either two seperate headphone preamps (something cheap like the Rolls will do) or a box that allows two seperate stereo inputs and outputs that are selectable between the two. Fostex makes such a box (PH-5) that is not much more expensive than the Rolls.

Now just send Aux's 1-2 to headphone Box #1, and Aux's 3-4 to headphone box #2. By changing the Aux level on each individual mixer channel (representing a stem of a different instrument or instrument group) you can easily give more vocalist to the vocalist, for instance, without giving it to the drummer.

If you have a mixer with six aux sends, for instance, you can create 3 unique stereo cue mixes or six mono ones. Or some combination of the above (like 2 stereo and 2 mono, 1 stereo and 4 mono, etc.)

I actually use 12 aux sends (two mixers with 6 aux's each, hooked up in series - insert points out of one mixer into line ins of the other). This lets me easily create 6 unique stereo cue mixes. Then I just have a bunch of those little headphone preamp boxes (Rolls, etc.) for each musician.

JoHoozaFats... · 22nd June 2003

thanks for the input y'all..

only problem is the aux sends can only be heard on one side. (old Mackie CR 1604) I solved this by sending all aux sends to an additional behringer mixer, setting all the channels to solo and enabling solo on. at least this way, thye can hear out both sides...

littledog- do u have a headphone amp for each player or are they all connected to the same amp?

e-cue · 22nd June 2003

I use a Powerplay (with a more me input aux on the front). I tried the little mixers, but honestly, my clients don't seem to do well with that much control and I kinda like only having to send the music down one pipe and the vocal down the other. I also a fruman I use when I track several players. If I was more consistant locationwise, I'd probably get into it deeper, but the need isn't really there right now.

littledog · 22nd June 2003

Quote:

Originally posted by JoHoozaFats...

littledog- do u have a headphone amp for each player or are they all connected to the same amp?

you'll need a seperate headphone amp for each player. that's why I recommended the Rolls, which is pretty cheap, or the Fostex which will allow two seperate headphone mixes out of one box.

cjogo · 22nd June 2003

We use the passive (no AC) Califone 1214 AVS

dual inputs and four individual stereo outs

very small unit ( size of a Beta VHS tape ) and plenty of gain

about $25

use them in all our studios

http://fp2k.redshift.com/cjogo/crystalrecording.htm

21st June 2003	#3
Chae Ham Gear maniac Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: MD Posts: 174	It seems like a lot of people like the furman options for headphone distribution. What's made our lives a lot easier is this new little booger called the <a href="http://www.prodigy-pro.com/SearchResult.aspx?CategoryID=11">Hear Back System</a> Since we use ProTools, we send from subgroups: DrumSub(stereo), Guitars, Vocals, Bass, Keys, etc... up to 8 channels out to the hear back mixers so the everyone in the live room can dial in their own mixes. It's eliminated A LOT of the cue mix tweaking from the control room, but you still get the occasional request to turn an individual mic down/up. Hope that helps! __________________ Chae H. Ham Prodigy Engineering

21st June 2003	#4
stuntmixer Gear nut Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Austin, Tx Posts: 123	I use the smaller Furman unit with as many as five distribution boxes depending on how many folks need a "ME" knob. __________________ Charles Rieser Southwind Studios Austin, Tx. www.southwindstudios.net charles@southwindstudios.net

21st June 2003	#6
davemc Lives for gear Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Melb, Australia Posts: 1,021	I send 4 pre-fader auxes to 4 outs on the 96io in PT(direct out) One stereo set go to a pair of Tannoys for monitors in teh band room, I pan left and right the players own instrument. The other stereo pair go to a amp powering the headphones via tie lines. Both of these headphones are mono, so the drummer and vocalist can have what ever they want in there side of the mix. Best thing is its recallable in the session.. Thought about a furman although need more outs.. __________________ Bye Ya Dave INDENT

21st June 2003	#8
vodka gimli Lives for gear Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Nashville, TN Posts: 592	Cue Mix We bought several of the little Behringer mixers as More Me boxes. Every one gets the stereo 2 mix that I hear in the control room (I could give them a separate Aux mix, but I like to hear what they are hearing) and can EQ both the 2 mix and their More Me input, and control the volume of both. The bassist plugs his preamp into a DI and I take the 1/4" out of the DI to his Behringer. Same with Keys. The guitarist gets a second mic on his cabinet, into the Behringer XLR to give him control of his signal to his phones. Drummer has a M88 over his shoulder into his mixer. Everyone can turn themselves up versus the 2 mix from me. Anyone with a line level signal goes into the 1/4 ins on the Behringer, anyone mic'ed gets a second mic or a feed from any onboard piezo. Works great. Vocals are cut as scratch vocals so singer gets 2 mix only. When keeper vocals are tracked, they get whatever they want from me. The Behringer boxes are around $60.00 each. __________________ "Directly or indirectly, all questions connected with this subject must come for decision to the ear, as the organ of hearing; and from it there can be no appeal." — Lord Rayleigh

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21st June 2003	#1
JoHoozaFats... Gear Head Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: nyc Posts: 49 Thread Starter	What do U do for Headphone Mixes I've been tracking thru my Mackie CR 1604 into a Behringer MultiCom into my Motu 1224. OK, not the greatest sognal chaib, but... I need to get seperate headphone mixes to my players. I;ve got the headphone out of my board into a headphone amp. How does one use Aux sends for headphone mixes? Or rather, should I take the 8 outs of the MOTU into another mixer? Help!!!

21st June 2003	#2
littledog Lives for gear Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Boston area Posts: 874	How many different cue mixes do you need to create? And going to how many musicians? Do you want them to be stereo or mono? An easy way to set up cue mixes is to assign the different outputs on the Motu to instrument groups (called "stems"). For example, drums on output 1-2, bass on 3, guitars 4-5, vox 6, etc. Instruments that use pairs of outputs are ones where you want to hear a stereo image. Run them back into extra line inputs on either your Mackie (if you aren't using most of the channels and auxes for tracking) or a seperate mixer. Then you can use your aux sends as either seperate mono mixes, or in pairs for stereo mixes. They should be prefader sends so that whatever you do on the faders, including soloing or muting an instrument, won't affect what the musicians are hearing in their headphones. If you are using, e.g., Auxes 1-2, on the stereo tracks use Aux 1 only on the left half and Aux 2 only on the right half of the channel pair. On mono channels set Aux 1 and Aux 2 to the same level, or the image won't be centered in the headphones. There should be output jacks on your mixer for each aux send (usually 1/4"). Simply take a cable and run it to a headphone preamp that is set up in the playing area.

22nd June 2003	#10
JoHoozaFats... Gear Head Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: nyc Posts: 49 Thread Starter	thanks for the input y'all.. only problem is the aux sends can only be heard on one side. (old Mackie CR 1604) I solved this by sending all aux sends to an additional behringer mixer, setting all the channels to solo and enabling solo on. at least this way, thye can hear out both sides... littledog- do u have a headphone amp for each player or are they all connected to the same amp?

22nd June 2003	#11
e-cue Lives for gear Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Lost Angeles Posts: 4,061	I use a Powerplay (with a more me input aux on the front). I tried the little mixers, but honestly, my clients don't seem to do well with that much control and I kinda like only having to send the music down one pipe and the vocal down the other. I also a fruman I use when I track several players. If I was more consistant locationwise, I'd probably get into it deeper, but the need isn't really there right now.

22nd June 2003	#13
cjogo Lives for gear Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: CARMEL Posts: 1,544	We use the passive (no AC) Califone 1214 AVS dual inputs and four individual stereo outs very small unit ( size of a Beta VHS tape ) and plenty of gain about $25 use them in all our studios http://fp2k.redshift.com/cjogo/crystalrecording.htm

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