Insert I/O or no Insert I/O

B

BeagleFaceHenry

Member
From what I understand, the Insert I/O is a TRS effects loops. The usage would be to plug your mic into your board, then run a loop from the Insert to your EQ/Comp/Etc. back to your insert. Correct?
My question is: Why bother with the Insert loop? What do you gain (besides gain staging, no pun intended)? It sounds smarter to me to run the mic through the EQ/Comp/Etc., THEN into the board. OR run the mic into the board and route through the effect aux sends. But, I don't see what is gained by going into the mixer, out the insert, back in the insert, and beyond.
Can someone shed some light on this one?
Thanks!
-j
 
The first thing that strikes is that a microphone outputs a very low level signal wheras most effects units operate at line level in and out.

If you ran a microphone into an eq or compression unit, the chances are it's looking for line level and you're not going to hear anything.
Having the eq or comp in the insert loop means it's being fed the appropriate signal level.
You may also have a send/return level and various routing options that you wouldn't have otherwise.

If you go with your other suggestion Mic - Desk - Output to effects then that particular channel has left the mix.
The mixing desk is producing a stereo output, or whatever bus/group setups you have going on, but the effected path of the single track in question is coming out of the back of an effects unit. Ie. It's not included in your mix.

To include it in your mix you'd have to return it to a separate channel of your board which may (manual wet/dry - two faders) or may not be desirable, but it's around the world for a shortcut in most cases.

Put simply, using inserts is convenient, tidy, and requires very little thinking. ;)
 
BeagleFaceHenry said:
... EQ/Comp/Etc. ...OR run the mic into the board and route through the effect aux sends. ..
Click to expand...

In addition.. what is an aux send..? It's a split of/off the channel path.
There's a real good reason why that makes sense for echo', verb etc when maybe a 50/50 mix (or less) is what you want, v.s. processes where you want all the signal effected.
 
A mic signal needs preamplification before being put through line level devices like eqs and compressors.

The normal way to route eq and compression on one channel is in series, which is what an insert does. Aux sends are for parallel effects like reverbs, delays, chorus etc. You definitely want to avoid running eq in parallel, and compression is sometimes used in parallel but that's a special case.
 
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