rack mounted effects/ pre amplifiers

[GUITAR08]

Hi, could somebody please describe these please? I keep coming across them but really now what they do, thanks.

[KineticSound]

If you've got a mixer, then you've got preamps... probably one on each channel. These take the signal from your microphone (or keyboard, drum machine, etc.) and amplify their signal. A rack-mounted preamp or set of preamps is the same idea, just not built-in to a mixer. A multi-channel, rack-mounted preamp is just a set of preamps built into a box that mounts in a standard 19" rack. Typically, these will have either a set of analog outputs that can feed into a mixer or soundcard, or if there's a digital converter built into the box, it may have some sort of multi-channel digital out that can feed a digital mixer, recorder, or soundcard if they have a matching digital input. Sometimes, your preamp is just a single channel (like my Focusrite TrakMaster Platinum, for example). It's just one preamp with some other goodies in the box designed to amplify one mic and send the signal to my recorder.

Rack-mounted effects are the same idea. Most reverbs, compressors, etc come packaged in a tidy little box that fits into... you guessed it... that same 19" standard space.

[drossfile]

here's a rack example (not mine):

[GUITAR08]

so the rack mounted ones like in that photo ^^ , does that act as one big mixer then? with instruments going into the seperate units? if you had this do you still need a mixer?

[KineticSound]

Originally Posted by GUITAR08

so the rack mounted ones like in that photo ^^ , does that act as one big mixer then?

Negative. You would still need a mixer to manage the signals going into/out of that rack.

Check out http://www.mediacollege.com/audio/mixer/intro.html for some basics on how this relationship works. In the diagram at the bottom, the "effects" might be a rackmount effects device.