Re: Three channel instrument preamp for stage?
Originally Posted by
Steve260
Christian,
Check out the Mackie 802 VLZ3 mixer. It is a compact mixer with instrument/line and XLR inputs on 3 channels. Each channel has separate input trim and EQ, and the mic pre's are pretty good. Each channel also has a "mute button", so it is easy to ensure that only the instrument you are playing is "live".
I have used this mixer for several years. I plug an acoustic guitar, mandolin and resonator into the Mackie 802, and send the main output to a single channel of the house mixer. Lets me have local control of my instrument gain, levels and EQ, and only uses one PA channel. I don't know if that setup would work for you, but it might be worth considering.
Best of luck,
Steve
While this is good for some people playing small pub gigs and cafes etc, as a working audio engineer this setup irks me somewhat at festivals.
Multiple instruments deserve separate channel treatment and being the one who is supposed to have control of things like that it gets frustrating having such different instruments coming down the same line, being unable do do much with any of them as any changes will affect all instruments. The fact that people tend to do this with cheap signal destroying units is cause for further frustration. There is a perfectly good 32-48 channel console worth tens of thousands of dollars, with a competent engineer operating it, and people make the choice to use a $100 POS "minimixer" and restrict the potential for much tweaking for optimum results.
I think the fact that it would be very hard to control the Mackie VLZ with your feet would make the G system a good choice here. Like FP said, you should spend some time setting up your scenes and dialing your instruments in before gigging with it.
Hereby & forthwith, any instrument with an odd number of strings shall be considered broken. With regard to mix levels, usually the best approach is treating the mandolin the same as a cowbell.
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