speakers though a mixer?

[AlexD]

As most of you know I’m really new to this site and I’m rather new to sound teching as well. The set up that I have at my school is very simple with only a set of speakers, and we use the two main outs to send the signal to them.

I was wondering how do you get multiple speakers out of a mixer? And dose it matter what mixer you have? Dose it change from mixer to mixer?

[Blah067]

That would completely depend on what mix you wanted to send to what speaker.

In the case of large concerts, all the "left array" speakers "get the same signal", so the output from the "console left out" is just parallel wired from amplifier to amplifier, because one amp cannot possibly power all those speakers.

However, at those same concerts, the performers have stage monitors, which are fed off of a different mix off the board, usually an axillary send.

Matrix outputs are also used to feed other areas of the venue or area, in a theater, these might be lobby and backstage feeds. In concerts, delay fills and such.

Mixes such as the matrices and auxes are independent and not controlled by the Main Mix (usually), and therefore can have different mixes.

The larger your console is, you usually have more "mix outputs", and the more mix outputs you have, the number of mixes you can create.

If your board only have 2 aux sends and a left and right output, you only have 4 mixes. If you 16 aux sends, 4 matrices, and LCR, you have (technically) 23 mixes, but some don't count the "C" as a mix (sometimes a mono sum...let's not get into the differences of LCR and LR +mono here guys...). There isn't really a limit (other than amp power/availability/budget/venue size/etc) of how many speakers can be run off of one board mix. The soundboard doesn't determine how many speakers can be run off of a mix, whether it be 2 or 200.

Also, some people won't count LR as two mixes, since usually you're mixing a LR mix in stereo, not dual mono, so it's "basically" one mix (for the sake of confusion, let's not get into nitty details about this, since that isn't what the OP asked...).

Furthermore, the sound board has no "knowledge" of what is connected to its outputs. (whether it be 2 speaker or 200 speakers...).

[AlexD]

Ok. What if you want to send the signal to certain speakers in one cue but in a different cue you want to send it to different speakers?

[AlexD]

Let me guess... You have to send it through the aux sends? If so I’m going to need a mixer with a lot of aux sends... Well, to do what I was planning.

Or is there a different way to do it and still have the ability to send the signal it to different locations?

[marcusianl]

Might I ask what board you're using? I know on my LS9 (a digital board from Yamaha) I can set up which mixes each of my channels output to and quickly change them with the press of a button. This would be more difficult on an analog board as you'd have to patch the channels to different mixes or turn off the mix you didn't want to use for one cue then turn it back on and turn off the other for the next (I don't even think that would be feasible on a simple two speaker setup because you'd be left with one speaker at a time).

[AlexD]

Well at the moment we have a rubbish mixer... the master fader is broken on it so we will be getting a new one. We will be using analogue because we can’t afford digital

The mixer that I am thinking on Getting is a soundcraft LX7 ii 16 channel mixer.

[Blah067]

Or, you can have all the speaker cables run back to a patch panel (or makeshift one) and then switch the patch in between cues...
I've done this a lot.

[marcusianl]

Yeah with an analog board I think patching is going to be the easiest solution. I don't know much about that mixer so I won't pretend to offer an on-board solution. Perhaps someone who has worked with such a device could offer some help? Otherwise patching, as William mentioned, is your best bet.

[Blah067]

Originally Posted by AlexD

Well at the moment we have a rubbish mixer...

The mixer that I am thinking on Getting is a soundcraft LX7 ii 16 channel mixer.

be glad you can afford anything....

[AlexD]

Originally Posted by Blah067

be glad you can afford anything....

I suppose but with a half broken mixer isn’t very good...