Well I just received my Behringer UB1202 mixer today and I've got a few questions. There are two 1/4" outputs labelled CTRL ROOM OUT, aren't those monitor outs? And I was looking at some specifications on the website earlier and all of the 1/4" inputs were reffered to as 1/4" TRS. What does the TRS mean? I have seen cables on Musician's Friend as XLR - 1/4" and XLR - TRS. What is the difference between the two and is one better than the other? Thanks once again for the help

I have a feeling TRS are balanced 1/4" jacks, aes is likely to know. Although I often see mixers that can take balanced 1/4" jacks, I've never seen a sound source that uses them, which is odd.

Well if that is so, then what does balanced and unbalanced mean? And you didn't answer my question about the two 1/4" jacks labelled CTRL ROOM OUT.

[QUOTE=BlinkRockr41]Well if that is so, then what does balanced and unbalanced mean? [B]And you didn't answer my question about the two 1/4" jacks labelled CTRL ROOM OUT[/B].[/QUOTE]

oooh, I am sorry.

I'm sure those will be normal line outs for monitoring. I can't think what else they'll be, and in a studio, the control room is where the monitoring would need to go. Although I can't really see any studios big enough to have a control room using 7 channel £60 behringer mixers, somehow.

"Balanced" leads allow 2 connected peices of equiptment to share the same earth, reducing hum. Or something along those lines. In breif, its just better, because it reduces hum.

The Control room out is for connecting up something like Studio Monitors. For the monitoring of the Mixers signal by the mixers operator. Like if the mixer is located in a sealed off sound proof booth, like in a recording Studio.
You'll get the same signal out of the control room outs as you would out of the headphone jack.

TRS conenctors are 1/4" connectors (TRS stands for Tip, Ring, Sleeve). And they've got three wires in them for use with stereo sources or balanced equipment.
As apposed to the TS (Tip, Sleeve) 1/4" Connectors. Which are used for mono signals or unbalanced signal sources.

Look at a TRS connector, you'll see two little black bands around it seperating the Tip, the Ring and the Sleeve. The TS conenctor will only have one little black band seperating the Tip from the Sleeve.

And yes. Moaner is correct in saying that Balanced equipment shares a common ground. If you've got a common grounding point you can eleminate the risk of noise. Especially in larger PA setups. Among other things.

Ok but can the CTRL ROOM OUT's still be used for monitoring in a live situation if I hooked up another power amp inbetween? And for the TRS cables, would it be better to buy TRS cables instead of TS to go between the mixer and the power amp? Or is it that necessary?

Yes, You could use the control room outputs for monitoring in a live situation.
Use the control room / headphones volume knob to control monitor loudness.

But I would reccomend you run monitors of the FX send instead. Connect the FX send on the mixer to your monitoring setup. And use each channels FX level to set your desired monitoring mix.
I believe the FX sends on these mixers are Pre-fader. Meaning that if you turn up/down the main output slider, then the monitor mix level will not also be affected. Like it would if you were monitoring off the Control room outputs.

The Main outputs on the 1202 Mixers are unbalanced. There will be no point in using balanced 1/4" connectors with it.

Alright thanks. In the instructions, though, it says under FX SEND "The post-fader FX signal you created using the input channel FX controls is sent to the effects unit via the FX SEND output.", so I guess that means its post fader and there would be no advantage to using the FX SEND for monitoring as opposed to the CTRL OUT's. But if I'm wrong and we were to used the FX SEND for monitoring, we're hooking up 2 mics and later on probably a guitar and bass amp, and we want two seperate monitors, one for me the guitarist, and the other for our bassist. So, would we just hook up the mixer to one of the inputs of the power amp and then run two monitors from it or would we need some sort of splitter to run the mixer to each of the power amp's channels?

Oh. So those FX sends are Post-Fader? That's a shame.
In that case, yes, just use the control room outputs if you wish.

With regards to only having the one FX send, but a two channel poweramp for the monitors. What you'd normally do in that case is either 'bridge' that poweramp for mono operation. Or use a splitter.

Is There anyway to use a mixer as a preamp if it doesnt have preouts?

You mean use one channel of a mixer as it's own preamp seperate from the rest of the mixers channels?

Yeah.
If the mixer has an Aux output that is pre-fader. You can run the channels volume down (so its not in the main mix) and just use this Aux output for your signal.
Or if the Mixer has an Alt Bus. Which can be assigned for each channel. You could use this.

The Behringer 1204FX PRO has got both a pre-fader Aux send and an Alt Bus.

Some other (bigger) mixers may have an insert path for each channel. That you could be able to mute the return of.

Yeah I think thats what I mean, I want to use a mixer as a pre amp for a power amp, but it doesnt have pre outs. So i think you might have just answered my question, but is there another way.

the mixer i am talking about is the Kustom 80 Watt Mixer

[QUOTE=CrazyDrummer09]the mixer i am talking about is the Kustom 80 Watt Mixer[/QUOTE]
In that case. No.

If the mixer has a line out (which i think it does) then you could be able to run this into other equipment. But you still must always have the Kustoms speakers attached to it.

Why not just sell the Custom and buy a cheap little Behringer or Yamaha Mixer for the poweramp instead. It'll be a whole lot more suitable.

[QUOTE]Why not just sell the Custom and buy a cheap little Behringer or Yamaha Mixer for the poweramp instead. It'll be a whole lot more suitable.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, they're really good value.

aes, you know how using a mic into an amp damages it...

Well, is that because a mic is 600OHM and a guitar is >1MOhm? Because I just thought, some amps have CD inputs, so must b able to handle vocals. Its just I figured you could plug a mixer into the CD input of an amp and it wouldn't damage it.

The impedence mismatch may have something to do with it.
But I think it is the fact that the input stages of amps can eventually be damaged because of being constantly overdriven by the mic signal.
The input stages of guitar amps are meant to handle the signal from guitar pickups.
Like how extremely high gain settings on distortion pedals can also eventually kill the input stages of the amp.

[QUOTE=Aes820]Oh. So those FX sends are Post-Fader? That's a shame.
In that case, yes, just use the control room outputs if you wish.

With regards to only having the one FX send, but a two channel poweramp for the monitors. What you'd normally do in that case is either 'bridge' that poweramp for mono operation. Or use a splitter.[/QUOTE]Thank you very much Aes820. I think all my question have been answered and you've been alot of help.

[QUOTE=BlinkRockr41]Thank you very much Aes820. I think all my question have been answered and you've been alot of help.[/QUOTE]

seriously, 50p says you coulnd't think of a single thing about PAs or amps that he doesn't know.

[QUOTE=Aes820]Yep. The Nady 850 Looks pretty good to me.

Now. With regards to poweramps just some general advice.
1. NEVER run them without speakers (or a load) attached.
2. Don't bridge them unless you are certain you've got the loading and wattage for the speakers correct.
3. Run the volume of the poweramp up nearly all the way, all the time. Turn it up full then turn it down just slightly if it is too noisy while up full. Use the output level on the mixer to control overall volume.
Dont have the output level on the mixer all the way up while only having the poweramps volume down low, this is an incorrect gain structure and you can experience some major problems with clipping (which can burn out your speakers).
Turn up the poweramp and leave it up. Use your mixers levels to control your overall volume.[/QUOTE]Hey I was looking through some old posts and I found this. I thought I had read in my Behringer manual that you always want your signal to peak at 0db, so I assumed you set your mixer to be loud enough to get to 0db, but never go over, then set the power amp level according to how loud you want everything, am I wrong about that? Is your signal just never supposed to go over 0db and it doesn't matter if it's way under? You also said in the "What is db?" thread that you always try and set your signal between -3db and 0db? So how is it supposed to be? Also, could you give me a more detailed sort of guide about setting up a pa, like if there's certain order to turn things on. (My band has a seperate mixer, power amp, and speakers if that makes a difference). And one other thing, in another post this guy had two 100W RMS speakers at 8 ohms. And you recommended a 2x100 watt at 8 ohm poweramp or a 2x200watt at 4 ohm poweramp. I was under the impression that if you had two 100W 8ohm speakers hooked up in parallel, the most each speaker could receive was 100W. So if speakers are wired in parallel, the wattage being put into them can be doubled? I know its alot of questions, but thanks for the help.

0dB and above is the point where equpment clips.
You should ideally try to set your signal to as close as possible to this 0dB limit without ever peaking over [B]for recording[/B]. As you'll ensure the best possible recording quality.

With regards to PAs. Adjust each channels input gain so that is never peaks over this 0dB limit, like said above.
And then use the mixers main output slider to control overall loudness, (not the volume knobs on the poweramp).

If you are loud enough with just having the mixers main output sliders up quarter of the way. Then that's all well and good, that's all you'll need.

If you slide the main output sliders nearly all the way up, so your signal occasionally peaks. Then when it does peak it will be sending a clipped signal to your poweramp and this will introduce an unpleaseant sounding distortion. Too much of it can even damage your equipment.

Alright thanks, but I don't think you answered all of my questions. In another post this guy had two 100W RMS speakers at 8 ohms. And you recommended a 2x100 watt at 8 ohm poweramp or a 2x200watt at 4 ohm poweramp. I was under the impression that if you had two 100W 8ohm speakers hooked up in parallel, the most each speaker could receive was 100W. So if speakers are wired in parallel, the wattage being put into them can be doubled? And is there any more specific things I need to know about what to do and what not to do while setting up a PA?

Well. think of it like this: You are doing sound at a gig, controlling the mixer. It is right in front of you. But the poweramps are right up the other end of the room, next to the stage. If you want the band to be a little louder you'll have to get up and walk all the way over to the stage, where the poweramps are, and then turn them up there. A much simpler way of making the whole band louder would be just have the poweramps volumes up nearly all thew way all the time, and slide the main output slider on the mixer up a bit.
This is generally how it is done, for reasons of simplicity.

There are other reasons too. On account of the whole clipping thing, if a rogue sine wave gets through and clips over this 0dB limit, then you will get distortion. Because, you can't predict what the person on the stage is going to do.
Say you set their levels suitable for a normal singer and the gig is going well. But suddenly the singer decides that they want to bring the mic right up to their face and give it a huge death-metal like growl. You dont have time to react to this and suddenly you've got red 'clipping' lights flashing up all over the place. This doesn't sound good.

You'd want to set your levels appropriately, so you'll always have enough headroom to do the job and to eliminate the risk of unwanted distortion due to clipping.


I reccomend a 200 watt at 4 ohm poweramp in that instance. Because running an 8 ohm speaker off a poweramp rated at 4 ohms will give you a slightly reduced output power. If the poweramp was rated to pump out 200 watts per channel at 4 ohms. Then it may only be able to pump out 100 or 120 watts or so per channel while at 8 ohms.

And, I mean, per channel. Most poweramps are stereo, meaning they have a left and right channel. You'd run each channel into its own respective speakers.
You can [B]bridge[/B] some poweramps, to convert the left and right channels into the one single channel. But this is a little more complex. I should have coverd bridging poweramps somewhere else in this thread. Although I wouldnt reccomed you worry about it for now.

When you combine additional speakers together, regardless of if they are in parrallel or series, you combine each of their rated power dissipating rating to claculate their new rating. Remembering to take into account their impedence and the loading they'll have on the poweramp.
So, two 100 watt 8 ohm speakers wire together in parrallel will be like one 4 ohm 200 watt speaker.

Ok I think I get it. I've got a few more questions, though. How do you wire speakers in parallel? Is there just another output on the speaker that goes between two of them? We just got two squier loudspeakers that are 300W RMS. If they can be wired in parallel, then the biggest power amp we could get would be 2x600W @ 4 ohms, right? Also, you've said before that you should buy a power amp w/ a little more wattage than the speakers so clipping doesn't happen. Is there a certain percent that the power amp is supposed to be over the speakers? Basically, I'm trying to figure out the right size power amp to get the most volume from our speakers and the right amount of headroom, and they only have one input so if there's a seperate one you have to have for parallel, we can't do it. But please tell me what size would be right for both if we could and couldn't wire in parallel. Thanks for the help.

im so happy today i bought my first ever pa (well our band did) its a jade 150 watt powered mixer and 2 jade 75 watt speakers so it suit our band well. i paid 300 australian so im happy

Yea I'm the wreck that started the live sound thread. God knows I need help. I just need the bare minimum for a live show if you guys could let me know what i need and an idea of good quality item that wont cost me a million dollars that would be huge. Thank YOU!

[QUOTE=dRvthruRkr]Yea I'm the wreck that started the live sound thread. God knows I need help. I just need the bare minimum for a live show if you guys could let me know what i need and an idea of good quality item that wont cost me a million dollars that would be huge. Thank YOU![/QUOTE]
As mentioned before in this thread: Have a look on Musiciansfriend, or around in local music stores for Packaged PA Setups.
Where you get a Powered Mixer and a couple of speakers all in one package.

I sure will, thank you

Its time for a p.a. upgrade.

I was wondering if I could just buy another power amp instead of having to replace the one I have now with a bigger one, meaning I could use them at the same time. Is there a way to use multiple power amps to get more power? If so how?

[QUOTE=iron_lion]Its time for a p.a. upgrade.

I was wondering if I could just buy another power amp instead of having to replace the one I have now with a bigger one, meaning I could use them at the same time. Is there a way to use multiple power amps to get more power? If so how?[/QUOTE]

we'd need to know your current setup. Chances are if you need more volume you also need bigger speakers, at whoich point a full new system would probably be better anyway, for the extra channels.