Creating Monitor Mixes For Musicians
Monitor mixes are an essential part of getting the best performance out of a musician.
Ensuring that musicians can hear what they need to hear is one of the most important jobs of
a recording session, but it can also be one of the most frustrating.
The majority of audio interfaces achieve monitor mixes by using convoluted software mixers
that can achieve your desired task albeit with a lot of effort and time - time that you don’t have
during a recording session.
500R8 breaks down monitor mixing into two independent elements that are then blended
together in the analogue domain using 500R8’s Aux and Monitor Blend controls:
MIX
The Mix would typically comprise of live sources of
the tracking musician(s). The analogue mix is
created using the Mix Level and Pan controls
beneath each 500 series slot.
DAW
The DAW would comprise of playback elements
such as soft synths, click tracks, or audio backing
tracks incoming from the DAW.
Creating A Mix
Make sure that all of the instruments are connected to
the inputs of 500R8, the input gains/levels of the modules are set correctly and Mix Level/Pan
controls of each slot are set to minimum and center positions respectively.
1. Ensure both the Aux Blend controls are set fully anti-clockwise to the Mix position.
2. Connect a pair of headphones to the Aux Headphones port of 500R8 and hand them to
the musician - make sure the Aux Level control is set conservatively at around 10/11
o’clock.
3. Press and hold the Talk key to communicate with the musician via talkback - raise the
Talkback Level control until musician(s) can clearly hear the talkback bus.
4. Ask your musician(s) to start playing their instrument. They may not be able to hear
their instrument at this stage.
5. Carefully begin adjusting each of the Mix Level and Pan controls below each 500 series
module to create a mix of the live instruments. Throughout the process, carefully adjust
the Aux Level control so that the musician can hear the mix clearly through the
headphones - wait for the musician to ask rather than guess.
Focus on getting the important elements such as kick, snare and bass instruments prominent
in the mix - musicians take their cues off of these important tracks. Communicate with the
musician using the Talkback and ask them if they can hear all of the live instruments they
need to hear at this stage. Make adjustments if needed.
At this point, you have a great sounding analogue monitor mix that balances all of the live
instruments into the musician’s headphones but you also need to send a click or scratch track
into the Aux bus from your DAW session:
500R8 User Manual
-Page 43-
©201
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Cranborne Audio Ltd
