Soundcraft Spirit M Series, what gives?

[sajs]

I own a Soundcraft M4 mixer. Up until now I've been very pleased with the results. I decided to hook up an effects box to the Aux in and out. I could not get a signal to my effects box. I tried another effects box with the same results.

I found out that the only way I could get an effects box to work in the Aux section of this mixer was to crank up the Mic Gain Control almost to the max, the Input Fader almost all the way up, the channel Aux Send pots all the way up, the Return Gain pot all the way up and the Return Master Pot all the way up.
My mic signal is at a point of distortion to get enough signal to any effects box.
I tried different types of dynamic mics with the same results.

Is there something I am doing or not doing correctly, or does this Mixer just have very low Aux send and return signals?

When I hook up my crappy Behringer Mixer, all of my Aux effects work the way they should. What's up?

[noisedude]

There's nothing inherently wrong with the mixer. You may have a fault or you may be doing something wrong. Here's a quick check-list for you:

- Check your mic gain via PFL.
- Stick the fader at zero (i.e. almost all the way up).
- Turn Aux 3 to 3 o'clock on that channel
- Turn Aux 3's master send (right hand end of the desk just beyond the stereo channels) to 3 o'clock
- Connect Aux 3 to the input of your FX
- Connect the output of your FX to Return 1 (phono pair)
- Turn Return 1 to 3 o'clock
- Turn the Return Master knob up to 3 o'clock (to the right hand end of the four returns)
- Turn the master faders up

If you get nothing, you may have a problem. Try using one of the stereo channels (blue faders) instead as a return, and PFL that to see if there is anything coming back in at all. Tell us how you get on with that and we can thinl further.

I find that people forget the Aux Send and Return Masters quite often on my M12, but if you follow those steps you should in theory be alright.

HTH,

Nik

[sajs]

I am pretty sure I did all that but I could have messed up. I will try it again. Thanks.

[cortexx]

I use the soundcraft ES.

Here is how i use the effects rack.

plug the mic into the mixer incease the gain until you just reach the clip threshhold and turn it back slightly.

plug the aux out into the input of your effects rack , plug the output from your effects rack into a stereo input on the mixer. Use the mix slider to add overall effects to the output mix. Use the Aux pots on the mic channel to add effects just to the signal that you want them to add to.

[noisedude]

That's ok for guesswork but cheaper FX units from the likes of Behringer, Alesis, Yamaha and Lexicon are too noisy to use that way. You have to use an AFL on your Aux busses to get the signal going into the FX as hot as possible to keep the noise floor down ... rather than sending a weak signal and then re-amping it at the desk for the sake of a neat fader arrangement!

If your gain-staging is right you'll often find your returns are actually quite low, but at least you're not just boosting hiss!!!

Nik

[sajs]

Well I am glad that I mentioned in my initial post that I might be doing something wrong, I did. I missed the bank of Aux Master pots. As soon as I turned up #3 my effects worked. Thanks for your help.

[noisedude]

Originally Posted by sajs

Well I am glad that I mentioned in my initial post that I might be doing something wrong, I did. I missed the bank of Aux Master pots. As soon as I turned up #3 my effects worked. Thanks for your help.

Awesome! We've all made mistakes like that ... there's a thread called the 'Doo-Mass thread' around here somewhere celebrating real forehead-slapping moments like that.

Nik