Mackie 1642 vlz4 aux & returns routing experiments

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General Calisti
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Joined: Thu Oct 13, 2016 2:25 am
Location: Sweden

Mackie 1642 vlz4 aux & returns routing experiments

Post by General Calisti » Thu Aug 03, 2017 3:10 pm

Yo!

Does anybody else use a similar desk to mix?

I've been experimenting a lot with routing these two ways and i'd like to hear any opinions you guys might have on it. I usually use delay, verb and phaser, anything else i want separate goes in on aux 4 but i seldom need more than three.
I like having my signal go to a strip first for both delay and reverb for ease of control.

1: aux -> strip -> fx -> return (mono) -> main mix
2: aux -> strip -> fx -> strip -> subgroup (stereo) -> main mix

Rig 1 gives me an abundance of free strips but has the drawback that i cant pan each fx, they just sit in the middle for now and it ends up kind of dead compared to rig 2. I dont think using a y-splitter on the return in would make a difference sknce there are no ways to pan the returns and the incoming from fx is mono anyway.

Rig 2 hogs up 2 strips per aux leaving only 6 strips for my actual track, i feel thats bare minimum at best (i run a hybrid of 8 outs from the interface so my tracks are easily grouped but it gets cramped quickly), but what it does is that i have a fader for the volume post-fx and i can chain my three auxes both wet and dry for some really cosmic options and i can pan the return stripS and use a sub as bus to make them go setreo-ereo-ero-reo-reo-reoreoeoeo eo... sorry.

Rig 2 sounds better, rig 1 is more practical.
I'm thinking i might get a small 4 channel secondary mixer to group my returns and throw them back into the mackie on a stereo in using rig 1 as a send, freeing up channels and having the option of fine tuning the balance of the wets, but that might affect the end result in the main mix.

Another option is to sum all wets to return 3 (the only sub assignable return) corcumventing the stereo issue but how to do that? I'd need to sum before going to stereo return 3 anyway so then i'm back to having another box in the rig to mess up on :)


I hope that makes a little sense at least...
Desicions desicions...
Non possomus facere laterem sine DUB

User avatar
General Calisti
Posts: 16
Joined: Thu Oct 13, 2016 2:25 am
Location: Sweden

Post by General Calisti » Mon Sep 04, 2017 4:46 pm

I've stuck with the following routing:

My delay is routed with solution 2 and both my spring and phaser are fed from the aux out and come back on a strip each. Makes it possible to send the delay return to them and feed the other two to the dry send strip that goes to delay.

4 channels and the option to assign them to whatever sub i feel like from their return strips.

So i have 4 mono channels and 2 stereo left for my mix which ought to be enough.

1. Bass
2. Stuck
3. Rythm section 1
4. Rythm section 2 / ambiental weirdness /
5-6. Drums
7-8. Vox, sfx, whatchamacallems

Sub 1-2: Dry's
Sub 3-4: Wets

Stereo Return 3: Filtering which is assigned to sub 3-4

All input is welcome!
Non possomus facere laterem sine DUB

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