From Oakley Sound via analogue Sent Fri, Jan 4th 2019, 10:05
From Oakley Sound via analogue Sent Fri, Jan 4th 2019, 10:05
Further to what Brian wrote: The faders are attenuators in every analogue desk I have seen (and designed). That means that when they are at not at their highest level (usually +10dB) they are cutting the channel's signal level. In theory this means you will get the best signal to noise ratio with the faders at their maximum. In practice, the reduction in signal quality between +10dB and 0dB is so minimal it's not worth worrying about. And the benefits of having that little extra 'gain' by pushing the odd fader up during a mix is worthwhile. The trim controls are different. These affect the gain of the first stage in the channel. Turning these up more than necessary increases noise (produced by the first stage amplifier) and may clip the following stages producing distortion. EQ stages will also produce gain (sometimes lots of it) so a good desk will have clipping (overload) monitoring that looks at several parts of the channel's audio pathway. It is quite possible to not clip the first stage and EQ and then move the fader to +10dB and produce clipping in the final stage of the channel. Hopefully, your desk will alert you to this before your ears. Some pan circuits will also produce gain in one of channel's the two output channels when the pan pot is set off centre. Personally for recording, I have always had the channel faders at 0dB and adjusted the mix with the trims. The channel faders would then be used for dynamic changes in volume as the track progresses. Tony www.oakleysound.com