sweetbeats
Reel deep thoughts...
Forget ratios of mic to line level sources. Hook up your mics. Hook up your line level sources. That’s your ratio, but that figure is inconsequential. And you can have dynamic mics connected to an actively phantom powered mic input. So don’t worry about mixing and matching there with your condenser mics. You just don’t want to have balanced line level sources connected to an actively phantom powered mic input.
Yes you certainly can have 12 mics connected to the 12 mic jacks, and simultaneously have 12 line level sources connected to the 12 1/4” TS “LINE IN” jacks and switch the source to the mixer channel using the LINE switch as needed, but there is a caveat: line inputs 1-8 have two places you can connect sources, either the LINE IN jack, or the TAPE IN jack. The TAPE IN jack is what is normalled to the LINE source for channels 1-8. You break that normalled connection when you plug into the LINE IN jack. That’s why I suggested you connect your line level sources to mixer channels 9-12...then your tape returns are always available at three points: 1. the monitor mixer for you as the engineer during tracking or overdubbing using the TAPE RTN source switches, 2. the LINE source for channels 1-8 (when it’s time for mixdown)...and 3. as cue feeds during overdubbing using the LINE source switch at the AUX 1 control. In your case maybe, since you are sticking with 4 tracks at this time, use channels 1-4 as primarily tape channels, channels 5-8 for mics, channels 9-12 for line level sources, and connect your tape deck outputs to tape return jacks 1-4. This will have your tape returns normalled to mixer channels 1-4 for mixdown and cue feeds and this will maximize functionality and minimize any source crowding since channels 5-8 would be for mic or line level source overflow.
Maybe time for another video? This is a lot of info.
Yes you certainly can have 12 mics connected to the 12 mic jacks, and simultaneously have 12 line level sources connected to the 12 1/4” TS “LINE IN” jacks and switch the source to the mixer channel using the LINE switch as needed, but there is a caveat: line inputs 1-8 have two places you can connect sources, either the LINE IN jack, or the TAPE IN jack. The TAPE IN jack is what is normalled to the LINE source for channels 1-8. You break that normalled connection when you plug into the LINE IN jack. That’s why I suggested you connect your line level sources to mixer channels 9-12...then your tape returns are always available at three points: 1. the monitor mixer for you as the engineer during tracking or overdubbing using the TAPE RTN source switches, 2. the LINE source for channels 1-8 (when it’s time for mixdown)...and 3. as cue feeds during overdubbing using the LINE source switch at the AUX 1 control. In your case maybe, since you are sticking with 4 tracks at this time, use channels 1-4 as primarily tape channels, channels 5-8 for mics, channels 9-12 for line level sources, and connect your tape deck outputs to tape return jacks 1-4. This will have your tape returns normalled to mixer channels 1-4 for mixdown and cue feeds and this will maximize functionality and minimize any source crowding since channels 5-8 would be for mic or line level source overflow.
Maybe time for another video? This is a lot of info.