My ears HURT!!!

[Basement Man]

Here comes the stupid question of the day..

I'm currently mixing through headphones (Fostex PM-1's out for repair). The board is a Soundcraft M12 with the monitor outs going to a headphone amp. When listening back everything sounds great. When I hit the PFL/Solo button on any given track, that track volume almost triples. I've tried adjustments to master monitor volume, headphone amp volume, main mix volume and nothing seems to work.

In theory, shouldn't it just solo the track with maybe a small increase in db ??

Lost in Newbieland,

Andy

[Blue Bear Sound]

There should be a separate SOLO level button....

And why are you bothering mixing with headphones anyways?? (you're just going to have to redo the mix when you get your monitors back....)

Article

[baekgaard]

PFL means Pre Fade Listen, and it is just that: You can listen to the signal _before_ the fader. So, if you have set a certain fader at, say -12 dB, pressing PFL will send that channel at 0 dB, i.e. 4 times the level of that channel in the mix. PFL is not a solo button, unfortunately.

One "solution" is to use the input gain to adjust the levels so that all faders are close to 0 dB when the mix is right. That way, PFL will work as you intend it to.

Oh, btw, I agree... be careful when mixing with headphones. Your mix will not sound right on monitors (typically levels of reverb will be way off, EQ'ing is not OK and the balance can be incorrect) -- and some of us (at least me) find that after 2-3 hours of "cans" usage will cause pain in the ears and a lot of listening fatigue.

YMMV,


-- Per.

[TexRoadkill]

Does the M12 have a 'Solo In Place' or 'SIP' button? That will make the solo'd channels have the same volume and panning settings as they do in the mix.

[Basement Man]

Thanks for the replies...

Blue Bear, you're absolutely correct. I would never mix anything with headphones. I was just having some studio withdrawls during the downtime. That's when I bought the headphone amp and used the Monitor Out L/R jacks on the mixer for the first time.

When the monitors were in use, I had them plugged in to the main out L/R XLR's of the M12 (that is probably not where I should have had them plugged in). In this configuration, the PFL button only affected the Main Output LED's.

When using the monitor jacks of the M12, the PFL switch does solo the track.

Tex...
There is no SIP or seperate SOLO button on the mixer. The manual states that "when the latching PFL switch is pressed, it replaces the mix". Maybe I should have researched a little more before buying this mixer, although the sound is great.


Baekgaard

Thanks for the tips, I'm gonna try e'm as soon as I can.

Yes I will actually ask a question. When the monitors are in use, should the be hooked up to the monitor outs or mains ?

Thanks for all the help

Andy

[TexRoadkill]

Usually you hook up monitors to the monitor outs and you record the final mix on the main outs.

I'm guessing you have the main buss fader really low. That is the only reason that the PFL level would be a lot higher then the mix level. Either that or you have some of the tracks turned way down.

Turn up the main buss and turn down the monitor level and the PFL level shouldn't be so drasticaly higher.