Hey everybody, it’s Jason here from MacinTech community. As you can see here, I have a view shot of my mixer. And I’m actually going to talk about how it works and how I have it setup and the things it does.
Now this here is a PV10 as you can see up here. It’s a great mixer. It’s approximately $300 Canadian, because I am Canadian–prices.
Now, I’m going to show you how I have everything setup here. And first of all, my mixer is setup in stereo mode. Okay, there’s no sense getting a mixer if you’re not going to run stereo. When I had my old pyramid mixer, it was stereo as well. As you can see, I have my outputs here that actually go out to splitters, left and right channels. So one goes to my one computer and one goes to the string computer as well as my input channels directly for sounds on my computer.
Now, I’m going to tell you, if you run stereo, your audience, if you have a live stream and whoever is watching your video, is going to have more of a better experience on your live stream. So if I pan to the left channel, you can hear me on the left and I pan to the right, you can hear me to the right. And it’s great when you’re playing music in mixing audio in with your podcast or on your stream.
Using stereo, I’m going definitely recommend, if you use mono, I know myself if I go to someone’s stream and you know they’re using mono. I’m not going to be as you know, I’m not going to like it as gossip would be in stereo because stereo is definitely the way to go. And there’s lots of people out there that use mixers but they’re actually mono, they have only the left channel or the mono channel output. They’re not actually using stereo mode. So if you’re going to get a mixer, first thing I’m saying here, make sure that you spend some extra time to get stereo mode setup. So your audience can have the same experience as you’re having–your videos or your live stream.
So yeah, right here I have basically everything is pretty much RCA outputs. Like I said, I have my splitter here. This here is my condenser microphone. In here, I’ve got a new button all the way across. Right here, and if I will zoom in, so you guys can have a better look and let me just fix it. I always use manual focus on my camera.
This right here is my–the monitor section and I’ve got actually monitor master. These are actually separate, then the slides here. These slides here are controlled and then my master output. Now, the monitor slides right here or the knobs are actually separate controllers. And I use this when I tag on Skype or in Ventrilo, that way when people talk to me on Skype back and I’m using the monitor features, I have their channel down, that way they can’t here themselves with that. And then these slides down here are to the master level.
And it’s greater from one to do a private conversation because all, as I do is I turn my slide–my slider down like I just did and I keep this up. I can tag the people in Ventrilo. Now if I press mute, it would neat the entire channel from the monitor and the master here for that channel. Now I can also do effects, right here is a bottom effects and if I turn that up, then I would probably sing a lot better than it could without having the effects.
Now this is a great mixer, people should have mixers too begin with when they’re running a live stream. This is basically what it looks like, I’ve got some built-in effects, pretty effects as well as the second effects channel can be used as a post output. Now, over on the left here, I’ll show you, it says pre–I don’t know if you can see it. Let me zoom in just a bit more. This right here says pre and post.
Pre means, this is depended on its own. Post means, it’s dependent on the actual slider control at the bottom. So if I have this up and I’m adjusting the volume with my slider below on the channel, it’s going to go with the slider. So it’s dependent on the slider for that channel where pre is dependent on its own. So whether I have the slider up or down, it’s not going to affect this. Like I said, it’s great for monitor outputs or ongoing event.
I have–on a queues up here, right here this is–it slightly changes it to give–if you have a muddy–if you have like a muddy type sound or anything, it actually gives it like a little more bass end. But since–I actually find it that it sounds better when I have it off. You know I got the highs up, the mids are little down and because my voice can get a little bassy, I have a low sound. But if I bring my highs up, right here, I could make your subwoofer go off. Anyways, so that’s that.
My second channel is also for another condenser mic. And then use the third one for–yeah the third one for dynamic mic. What I’m talking to you from–right now, is actually my condenser mic which the MXL 990, for those who want to know. Right here, I have–this is the channel for my camera. So if I bring this up, you’ll be able to hear me out of my camera that’s up here, that’s pointing down. As you can see, it actually picks up more noise and static than a condenser mic. But I use it once in a while when I want to. And right here, I’ve actually got it, took up to RCA, I just basically got an adaptor. These are line inputs and then your inserts. And I just on RCA, this is going to actually separate left and right quarter inch jacks as well as RCA. It’s great–again, everything here runs in to–like I’ve got my master out for XLR. Then I’ve got left and right out with quarter inches and I have a control room back here, left and right for the controller in which is with the headphones. So if you have a control room, if you’re doing recording and stuff.
As well as down here, we have phantom power which is used for the condenser mic. I got the tape to control which is basically if I press that, it cuts out the master out for my headphone so I can queue something up and then tape to mix which will bring it and mix it in with the masters. I’m going control for this but I use the computer to control this. This is kind of it’s own separate thing but when I have the music going, I have it on this channel and then I sometimes switch between this and this, swap them sometimes and mix it in because–and I actually have EQ control.
But as you can see up here, you’ll notice that every one of the–everyone of the channels except for these two, have EQ adjustments and these don’t. These are all flat line. The reason for that is, is because the audio coming from the computer or the sound or the music is already at its own EQ from the compressors or the software or the actual song itself. So it does not make any sense to EQ, what you’re actually going to send out live. Because if something’s already EQ, coming here then EQ again, it might sound good to you but it’s going to go back out into a live stream and so it’s going to go under double EQ which actually could technically and make it sound not as good.
So just remember this that when you have audio coming from the computer, songs and stuffs, you know whatever you’re playing, leave your EQs at zero because the songs and the music is already like that because you want it flat going out to your live stream or in your video. So whoever watches your videos, basically you know it’s up to you whatever their audio and the equipment that it is set to. But over here, it’s you know you want to have your EQ or mic because your microphone is all different and you want to make your microphone sound as crisp and clear, not too bassy and stuff on your end so that way it sent out and it’s going to sound just like it would as if your songs are playing over here at zero.
So if I were to zero this, it really sounds muffled and stuff. But if I bring this down and this up, it’s going to be good. So yeah, right here, keep this at zero from your computer when you’re playing music and make sure to use stereo modes, so your audience has just as good as an experience as you are. Spend the extra buck, you’ve already gone a mixer that you’ve bought that if a stereo, make sure you get stereo outputs because your stream and your videos that you put in YouTube can be in stereo mode and that’s what you want to have the best experience.
If you have any questions, email us questions at macintech.net. Check out our live stream at live.macintech.net, and if you like our video subscribe to our YouTube channel, youtube.com/macintech and we’ll chat at you later.
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