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Hi

Hope this is the right place.

So for five years I have had a successful mix minus set up like this:

Phone call comes into mixer on L/R channels on mixer (Channels 7/8), I have the cable going back to the phone line from the SEND output so the caller can hear me, with the correct control knob turned down so they don't hear themselves - is that the best way to do it?

Additional: I know with this mixer when I am doing radio the USB/2TR return allows me to hear the music on the PC which is being broadcast as part of my broadcast but think I am right in saying that there there is no way to feed the USB/2TR feed back to the caller as well is there?

Thank you
Kyle

Comments

pcrecord Tue, 03/02/2021 - 05:09

If you use the aux send to send audio to the phone line, anything sent to the aux send will be heard by the person on the phone..
So if you play your music on a CD player or else, if you plug it to any input that as a send, you're fine..
If you play it from the computer, I don't know where the signal coming from the USB ends and if it can be routed to the send...
You are probably the best person to answer that..

Boswell Tue, 03/02/2021 - 05:44

Audio coming from the USB input only can go to the master outs.

To get that input back to the caller, you would need to T-off a stereo feed from the master outs to a pair of input channels and route them to an Aux. That would mean, of course, that the caller would hear everything that's in the main mix.

If you want one of the sources not to be in the mix (a mix minus), you could do it the other way round, and have the main outs as the mix minus, feed them back via stereo inputs and add the missing source via the Aux send knobs before sending the result to a pair of Aux outputs.

Take care to keep the faders at zero for the channels that receive the main mix returned, otherwise it will feed back.

Boswell Tue, 03/02/2021 - 07:15

The problem with that mixer is that the USB return from the computer is only sent to the main mix output. It's not available to route to an Aux send. Its level in the mix is controlled by the 2-TR/USB RTN fader. The implication of that is that if you want to send any sound generated by (or routed through) the computer out of the mixer, it has to come out of the main mix outputs, mixed with anything else from the main mix surface. It further means that if you want the mix that is sent to the caller NOT to have certain sources in it, you can't have those sources faded into the main mix.

The way I was suggesting that you get round that is to use the main mix to go to the caller as just described, but also generate an Aux output (send) to have the same fader mix as the caller (without the USB return). You would use the Aux knobs to generate that mix, and by keeping certain faders at zero, the Aux mix would include the signals that you did not want sent to the caller. Your local output would therefore come out of the Aux send socket. It could not go directly to headphones via the Phons/Mon output, as that is tapped off the feed to the main mix (another design shortcoming). If you need to drive headphones with this mix, you would need a separate small headphone amp connected to the Aux send output.

The USB return is not available for the channel mix or Aux knobs, so if you need to hear the computer-generated sources in the headphone mix, you would have to take a copy of the main output back into a pair of mixer channels. Keep the main fader on these two channels at zero, and use the two Aux knobs to route the caller mix to the headphones. If your main mix is only mono, it's a little simpler as you only need one loop back channel. To avoid a T-junction, the loop back could come from (say) the main L output while the main R output goes to the caller, as L and R main outs would carry identical signals. If you did it this way, the only Aux knobs you would need to use would be the loop back and any channels that were not in the main mix.

Boswell Tue, 03/02/2021 - 12:43

Kyle1974, post: 468021, member: 51674 wrote:
Thank you Boswell - I remember a previous discussion about 2-TR/USB not exactly being what they claimed. Out of interest, is this a particular Behringer thing? I know that the Rode works in a genuine 2 way sense. Do others?

No - several lower-end mixers behave like this. It's a result of cheapskate modifications to add USB to a mixer that was never originally designed to have that facility. Recording the 2-mix via USB is one thing, but to add an almost unusable stereo output is quite another. I can only assume that the marketing department seized on the suggestion that you might want to play interval music from your laptop during a changeover from one live act to another, where you could be setting up a completely new mix.

Kyle1974 Tue, 03/02/2021 - 14:45

Thanks again Boswell - I have been using my Rode for podcasting (with MUCH help from Rode which is a whole different story but anyway) - is there any mixer that you would recommend for what I am trying to achieve? Basically I cannot get the same sort of sound with the Rode as I can with my Behringer and the DBX286s...

Boswell Wed, 03/03/2021 - 07:28

Is your Rode mic the Podcaster, with a USB connection? If so, that device is a microphone and USB interface rolled into one, and Windows-based computers will regard it as the audio source, often to the exclusion of any other audio interface that may be plugged in. Macs are a bit more catholic in that respect as they can aggregate digital audio sources.

What I think may work for you is adding a low-cost line-level USB interface unit. This would replace the use of the USB in the X1222USB mixer, specifically to make the audio returns from the computer available as line inputs to the mixer, as well as letting you choose which outputs from the mixer (main mix or the Aux out) are routed back into the computer via USB, i.e. basically what a better thought-out design of mixer would do. Let us know if this route interests you, and we can make some suggestions as to what to look at.

Kyle1974 Wed, 03/03/2021 - 11:22

Ah I think I will stick with the Rode (which wasn't cheap!) and the mixer I have now for my radio stuff - it's not a massive thing for the caller to be able to hear the music I just wondered if there was a genuine two way USB from the PC - which I know is a discussion we had some time back - but thank you :)

pcrecord Thu, 03/04/2021 - 04:48

If your mixer can't redirect the computer's audio to the send, you could have an mp3 player or other external player going to the caller.
Just like your voice to the caller, another input of the mixer could receive either music or publicity or some audio to promote what you do while on hold..

Just a thought ;)

Boswell Thu, 03/04/2021 - 04:56

Kyle1974, post: 468035, member: 51674 wrote:
Ah I think I will stick with the Rode (which wasn't cheap!) and the mixer I have now for my radio stuff - it's not a massive thing for the caller to be able to hear the music I just wondered if there was a genuine two way USB from the PC - which I know is a discussion we had some time back - but thank you :)

Yes, that's fine, it's your choice. We are not going to dictate what course you should take from here, but I think you know now a bit more about what the problems are and what can and can't be done with what you have.

We'll still be here when you come to decide on your next step.

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