Consoles 917pair of pots that do substantially the same; one pans
left/right, the other front/rear. The “1” of the remaining
1.1 is center; it is to where central dialogue or vocal is
panned; this is usually achieved with a blend or simi-
larly named control, which cross-fades the source signal
between the center channel and the quad pan pot. In this
manner, a source can be directed to any one path, all, or
a combination for desired effect.
The last 0.1 is a bass sublow channel. The .1 means
that it is (but not always) band limited. It usually has its
own level control independent of the full-bandwidth
panning.
The surround panned outputs form a channel with
six dedicated surround mix buses, which are treated as a
married set within the console much as the main stereo
mix-bus is/was.25.14 MonitoringMonitoring is probably the single most important
section of a console. Without it the engineer cannot
listen to the results of his labor. At its simplest, moni-
toring consists of a power amplifier and loudspeakers
hung across the main output(s) of the console, with the
auxiliary functions either unused or preset. In public
address (PA) work the PA actually is the monitoring; the
only other function necessary is prefade listen (PFL)
and then really only during panic mode. At an alternate
extreme the monitoring demands for multitrack
recording extend to an entire secondary submixer
replete with panning, pre/post foldback effect feeds, and
stand-alone soloing, together with listen access to all
console send and return ports. The in-line console prin-
ciple makes efficient use of electronics to combine often
coincident signal and monitoring path requirements for
normal multitracking techniques. If the architecture is
well thought out, it is operationally rare to need to listen
to anything other than the main stereo bus output; this
output serves as both the multitrack monitoring bus and
the stereo mixdown bus.
Three distinct types of monitoring activities evolve
in multitrack work:- Mainline—The stereo bus encompasses the multi-
track machine sources/returns and stereo mixdown.
This can be read as surround bus if appropriate. - Transient—This allows short-term check listening
of individual channels for reassurance or adjust-
ment, using PFL or solo functions. - Auxiliary—This provides access to the assorted
foldback/effect feeds, effect returns, mastering
machine, and subsidiary machine returns.
From an operating point of view, the foregoing activ-
ities seem to form natural divisions. From a technical
stance, it’s a different matter entirely. The solo (in-place
monitoring) function is very closely related to the stereo
bus. In fact, it uses exactly the same signal path
throughout—and can be seen simply as a modified use
of it. PFL, though, despite a similar operation (only
prefade as opposed to post pan listening), actually
requires an entirely separate bus and mixing system. Its
output is switched to override the main path into the
monitors. (It may seem strange to go through all this for
a spot-check function that tells less than the stereo
in-place solo, until it is remembered that a solo disrupts
the mix while a PFL is nondestructive.) Conversely, anFigure 25-91. Panpots.
VinVinVinVinD. Ganged linear track pair with pull up resistors
approximately 3 dB center attenuation.TopRight LeftTopA. Ganged pair of counter connected linear pots.LogLeftTopTop
AntilogRight
B. Pair of ganged log/antilog tracks as routing panpot.2.2 k 7 2.2 k 7
Right
Left10 k 7
C. Single pot with feeder resistors. Choice of resistors
gives choice of center down point, as shown
approximately 3 dB.4.7 k 7 4.7 k^7
Top10 k 7Right LeftTop10 k 7