Karaoke Forums

This may be an absolutely stupid question, but please hook me up with the stupid answer:

Is there any difference in starting your mix with the master volume at unity and adjusting each individual channel for the overall mix as opposed to setting all of your individual channels at unity and adjusting the master volume?

For example....in my bar I always set my master slider at -15db from unity and my music/karoake at about -8-10db from unity. I can get the same volume putting my master at unity and the channel sliders at about -20db but for some reason my sub sounds cleaner this way (can't tell much difference in the mains, though)

Are these settings interchangable or is more clean amp power being fed to the speakers one way or the other. I didn't get a chance to fool around with it enough to really tell the difference last night because I didn't want to be making adjustments on the fly during my show.

I have read professional mixing sites that seem to recommend both methods interchangably.

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C Mc
KJ, FL

Running either one at unity is similar to running a tach at red line. Depending on the quality or brand of the mixer you are approaching the head room limit which is the area above unity before clipping occurs. Even at an outside gig I still like to run sliders and mains at - 6db to - 3db... then you have that extra uumph if you need it.. Any amp runs best at the center of the operating curve and anybody says you shoud be running at unity has rocks in their head. It is only for those cases when you are pumping every thing you got.  We are not running the Indy 500 with every song...

If you ran either at unity, run the mic channels, you'll send a cleaner signal to the master fader.  You want your channel signals as close to unity as possible with proper gain structure - at least the mics, the music channels will vary with different manus.

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