SOUNDBOARD BUTTONS FULL

SOUNDBOARD BUTTONS FULL

Put simply, the gain knob sets the 'input volume.' Think of a water faucet: a full water 'signal' comes in through the pipe (input cord), and the faucet itself (gain control) sort of limits the amount coming into the sink (mixer). On any good size mixer there will be a knob at the very top (first one in the strip) labeled 'Gain' or 'Sens' or 'Trim.' These are all the same thing. These are what you will see if you want to 'run sound' for a church or venue or record music of bands, etc. The first thing you need to know is that I will be dealing with moderate to large mixing desks and sound boards, with at least 10 channels (available inputs) or more.

But here,I will explain what these knobs do, and you will actually find them to be overwhelmingly simple. When a new sound guy looks at a mixer for a large church, per se, he may feel overwhelmed by the oceans of knobs that may or may not be there. The vast majority will have volume or 'level' controls on each input, or 'channel.' A great many still will have a variety of controls on each channel, from gains or trims to EQ and aux'es and buses and PFL's and more don't worry though - I will go through each of these at least briefly. It is pretty much universal that mixers will have at least a volume control on the output.

I will start with the absolute basics: What is a mixer? A mixer, in its purest and simplest form, combines or meshes an array of inputs into a few controllable outputs (hence the name, MIXer). In this instructable I am going to go through all the control features found on most mixers (mixing consoles, mixing desks, audio consoles, soundboards - they all refer to the same thing).

Soundboard buttons