nano compressor mic low-z applications!

[david beowulf]

need some input on alesis nano compressor hook up/and overall use with low-z microphones...ie,shure sm58,sure 57 condencer mics! also i'm using behringer eurorack MX 602A with my lexicon MPX 100 PROCESSOR as a fx loop! someone let me know how to hook these up to sound well,through my live drive 5.1... i'm a little puzzled at the moment! or any cool application would be really helpful!
thanks much, david beowulf!

[mnicoletti]

David, the NanoCompressor takes a line input, so you have to either come out of an external mic pre or out of your console (a channel insert is the usual place to patch).

[Executivos]

The compressor won't really work with your euro rack. Like mnicoletti said, you'd have to use another mic preamp first. *Most* mixers have channel inserts in them. If you know what a channel insert is, then skip this part.
A channel insert gives you access to the signal after the mic preamp (the gain knob) but before anything else. You would run a cable from that to the compressor and then back to the mixer to continue down through the eq and onto the fader. Sometimes there's an in and an out for the insert, sometimes you need a y adapter cable. 1 side is tip-ring-sleeve and it splits into two standard tip sleeve plugs.

Anyway the behringer mixer you have doesn't have inserts. The first model with inserts is the mx2004 ($299). What you would have to do is to buy a seperate mic pre, run you mic through that, into the compressor, and then out of that into the eurodesk. For most mic preamps you're looking around $80-$100. The midiman audio buddy is about 80 and it's 2 channels. If you only need one channel the art tube mp is 100, and from what I hear is a great preamp anyway.

All of this is based on assuming you just want to run a single channel through the compressor. If you just want to compress the whole master fader after coming out of the board, that's different and it's self explanatory.

Hope this helps, I tried to generalize.

[HearClear]

I had a 3630 and it was not very good at all. So i don't believe your nano even hooked up correctly will be any better but a compressor shouldn't color your sound anyway. I really like my composer pro it's got all balanced inputs, its dual channel and it's CHEAP! If I remember they're going for $150 in musicians friend, so you could probably find it cheaper somwhere else.

Adam