Headphone cue mix question

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famous beagle

famous beagle

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So I started recording a tune on the 388 today and had my friend over to record drums. He was in the living room, so I had to run a mix out to him with my little Rolls headphone amp.

I used the AUX send for his cue mix, which worked great. The only problem was that it was only coming in one ear in his phones. I assume this has to do with the fact that the AUX cue mix is mono.

Here was the routing:

AUX send jack --> TS cord to patch bay --> TRS cable to headphone amp --> headphones


We solved the problem by not inserting the TRS cable all the way into the headphone amp -- we had to secure the position with tape because it wouldn't stay there.

I know that it's not possible to get a stereo cue mix with this method, but what's the trick to getting a mono mix in both ears of the phones (aside from the jury rig that we put together)?

Thanks!
 
Build or buy what's usually called an insert tap cable and put the TRS end in the headphone amp. That would be TS on one end, TRS on the other, with the tip of the TS connected to both tip and ring on the TRS.
 
You may also be able to find a simple mono-to-stereo adapter, with a TRS plug and a TS jack.
 
famous beagle said:
I used the AUX send for his cue mix, which worked great.

I know that it's not possible to get a stereo cue mix with this method, but what's the trick to getting a mono mix in both ears of the phones (aside from the jury rig that we put together)?
Click to expand...


If you have more than one Aux bus to spare..use 2 Aux sends....but I guess you're still stuck with then having to split the headphone jack.

What about feeding it to a headphone amp that will then spit out a stereo or L/R mono signal...?
My headphone amp splitter has those options, so I can feed it a single channel, and yet the output can feed both L & Right headphone inputs.

Other than that...yeah, just get a cable or make a cable that can take the mono and feed both L/R headphone inputs.
 
Ok thanks y'all. I'm pretty sure I know what y'all are talking about. I may even have the adapters on hand to do it already.

I just thought that since it seems like such a common practice (generating a mono cue mix from an aux send), there would be a fairly established method.
 
I think it depends on the amp. I believe mine propagates mono to L and R channels if there is only a mono input on the L input. Yours is different because the input is TRS...mine is TS/XLR L and R.
 
miroslav said:
If you have more than one Aux bus to spare..use 2 Aux sends....but I guess you're still stuck with then having to split the headphone jack..
Click to expand...
One of the things that keeps the old Mackie 8 bus around is 'mix B'. I would really miss the 'stereo w/ pan for cue mixes.

I take it your phones amp is TRS for the input? Is that normal? (I would have guessed not typical?
 
Yes my headphone amp has a TRS input. It's this one:

https://reverb.com/item/3145928-rol...id=pla&pla=1&gclid=CK68xceHxc8CFQIoaQodXlQIKg

I absolutely love it (in fact I have two). I think I got them for around $30 each used, and they've been total troopers for years.

I was able to get it solved by using a chain of adapters/cords, all of which I already had.

I plugged this into the patch bay (where the AUX send is connected):
Hosa Y Cable, Mono 1/4" TS Male to Dual RCA Female, 6 Inch, YPR103

Then plugged this into the above:
Insten® 6' 3.5mm Stereo Male to 2 RCA Male Cable; Black | Quill.com

And then used this:
Hosa GHP-105 Headphone Adapter (3.5mm TRS to 1/4" TRS), New

And then ran TRS female-to-TRS male extenders to reach the headphone amp in the living room:
http://www.seismicaudiospeakers.com...6&cadevice=c&gclid=COjuhryJxc8CFQ4BaQodzdEMng


Bam! Mono cue mix signal in both sides of the phones. :)
 
mixsit said:
I take it your phones amp is TRS for the input? Is that normal? (I would have guessed not typical?
Click to expand...

Mmmm...now you're asking too many details. :D

I think it is...but it has a few ways you can feed it...both front and back, and TBH, my need for multi-headphone distribution is not that regular...but the amp has been usable and flexible when I've needed it.
It's the Samson S-phone...from several years back (not sure if there's been any model changes). I would have to take a look at the manual to give you a definitive answer...I just know that I've never run into a one-sided headphone issue in using it.

I also have several floor boxes that let me break out a feed from the S-phone even more. A couple of Whirlwind boxes, a couple of the Furman...and my favorite, 4 of the RedCo Little Red Cue boxes.
So like, I can feed four separate mono/stereo signals to the 4-channel S-Phone, and then I can break those up further with the floor boxes. What I also like with the S-phone is that it has its own "Aux" input...so like if a singer wants "more me"...I can take a split of the vocal channel, and inject it individually into one of the S-phones channels, allowing me to pump up just that individual volume for that one channel...while leaving the other three with the original stereo mix...so it's like doing a cue mix within a cue mix.

It's certainly not the absolute flexible headphone amp/distro setup...but like I said, my needs are very basic and light for the mist part...and, I always have more Aux buses on the console if I needed to get picky, and all that.
Thing is...when I have recorded other people in the studio...I don't ever offer them 10 options! :p
I set up one cue mix, the way I like it...and then if I have to make a couple of adjustments, like for the singer...or like for the drummer needed a lot of level without as much drums in the cans..etc...I'll do that...but I never ask anyone how they like their cue mixes. :)
 
Me neither. They get the HP mix I give them.
The band all gets the same mix when tracking.
For overdubs I can be a bit more flexible. But in that case it is usually only one performer.
 
I have a Behringer HA4700. Outside of being kind of noisy it was cheap and has worked *really* well with a number of different scenarios...a nice feature set allowing multiple inputs and some basic mixing, stereo or mono...anyway, I can't recall if it was the HA4700 or not but I recall noticing the control layout of it was identical to another make/model and I thought it was the Samson...probably both come out of 797 Audio...
 
In the studio where I spend most of my time there's a Behringer HA4700 in the control room, three headphone lines to the recording room and three or four of those Rolls headphone amps that can be placed where needed.
 
For your drummers mix, why not just plug a pair of headphones into the second headphone jack using a long extension cable for the phones?
 
j.harv said:
For your drummers mix, why not just plug a pair of headphones into the second headphone jack using a long extension cable for the phones?
Click to expand...

I was originally going to do that, but he needed a different mix than I did. I can't remember exactly now what the reasoning was, but I think it had to do with him wanting very little (if any) drums in his phones and more click, and me needing to hear his drums because I was doing a scratch guitar/vocal with him.
 
FB,
I have a couple of different rackmount headphone amps (4 to 6 channels each) and several of them offer the ability to send a direct signal to a single headphone channel.
Those are all done via 1/4 inch TRS stereo. also I have a little portable behringer one I take on my drumming gigs and the ONLY input is TRS.
I found the mono 1/4 input to stereo 1/4 output jacks on Monoprice really cheap and they work excellent.

I bought 20 for like 8 bucks.

I wished I could have found some pigtail kind of patch cables sometimes because 2 plugs stuck together provide a huge inline lever that is a little scary, but since it is tucked away in my rack it is safe.

those same plugs work good for tapping an insert point for use as a direct out.
 
tmix said:
FB,
I have a couple of different rackmount headphone amps (4 to 6 channels each) and several of them offer the ability to send a direct signal to a single headphone channel.
Those are all done via 1/4 inch TRS stereo. also I have a little portable behringer one I take on my drumming gigs and the ONLY input is TRS.
I found the mono 1/4 input to stereo 1/4 output jacks on Monoprice really cheap and they work excellent.

I bought 20 for like 8 bucks.

I wished I could have found some pigtail kind of patch cables sometimes because 2 plugs stuck together provide a huge inline lever that is a little scary, but since it is tucked away in my rack it is safe.

those same plugs work good for tapping an insert point for use as a direct out.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip Tom! I'll check that out.
 
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