Drum Monitor Mixing

[enjaku]

Newbies thread, right?

I just acquired a Yamaha 01v96i; my first board. What is the difference between a bus and an aux, especially in terms of a monitor send? I want to mic my drums and have the EQ-ed signal come back into my in-ear monitors while I practice. I've heard some ppl do this with an aux, and others do it with a bus. I'm not planning on recording anything right now, just want to achieve a good sound back into my monitors... baby steps.

 

[guitaristic]

Aux sends can be used for monitors, if that's what you're wondering. They're also used if you've got some outboard gear you want to put into the signal chain, like a compressor or whatnot. Buses pretty much just carry the signal around in the mixer. Like, you could send all of your drum mic inputs to a bus, then if you wanted them all to turn down you could simply lower the bus volume instead of doing them all individually. Buses come in handy if you've got a whole band going on, cause you can separate stuff quite easily. If you're playing by yourself though you could just use the main out. If not, then I'd use a bus.

Make sense?

 

[bouldersoundguy]

There are pre-fader auxes and there are post-fader auxes. If you use a post-fader aux then any fader adjustments affect your monitor mix. Sometimes pre-fader auxes are pre-eq and sometimes they're post-eq.

A bus is similar but normally a channel is switched into the bus or not, rather than having level controls like an aux. The level in the bus is controlled by the channel fader.

Normally for live mixing where the main mix is for the audience you will want to use pre-fader aux sends for your monitor mixes. Then you can change the house mix without disturbing the monitor mixes.