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I have a dumb mixer question I'd like to add to this thread...

When you put a pedal in an aux send that's +4db, do you run into impedance problems? Just wondering if it would be quiet or just wouldn't work at all. Thinking of picking up a little mixer and whether or not I could easily put pedals on aux would be a huge deciding factor for me. Halpz.

i dont have the technical answer but pedals and aux have never been an issue for me.

i think the answer to your q lies in the pedal itself, not the mixer. like if the pedal doesn't handle line level stuff well, and you send it a line signal thru the aux, u might get something funky. but even this i have not found to be an issue (most pedals can handle line level stuff rather well, maybe some older stuff might not..?)

you usually have a pre and post aux volume so you have pretty good control over the volume if its too low or too loud for your tastes.

Usually it's alright, but if it's not you can buy impedance utility devices for really cheap. Whirlwind is the go to company for that kind of stuff, it will cost you under $10

Awesome, dudes—thank y'all

Ok so I'm going to revive this thread with another question that's going to lower the brow even more. I've realized that I need something really basic explained to me.

I've used AUXes forever in Logic/PT, but I've never fucked around with a physical one on a mixer such as the ones we've talked about in this thread. I've looked at the Yamaha MG12 and the Soundcraft Signature 12, and am very confused about how they work.

For the longest time I assumed it was like the way you can use a TRS Y cable to make an Ernie Ball VP JR an expression pedal. Run the Y end of the cable into the correct in and out on the VP JR, run the TRS end to the EXP input, and voila. I thought this is what you'd do with one of these mixers... run the Y to the in and out of an effect, then the TRS to the AUX jack on the board... then the corresponding AUX knob on a channel strip would dial in the effect level.

Problem: in the manuals of the Yamaha and the Soundcraft, the AUX jacks are referred to as just outs, not send/return. On top of that, I can't seem to find a return jack in any of the images. Even more, the manuals offer no explanation.

So, this feels rill dumb, but fuck—can someone explain how I could use a fucking pedal with one of these things? Ugh, makes my brain hurt.

Aux outs on an analog board are just outputs. You need a seperate input to hear it back. So if you want to send channel 1 to pedal 1: Send channel 1 to aux 1, aux 1 feeds the pedal, pedal out goes to channel 2 in, channel 2 is now your pedal return.

^^beat me to it aka I also knew the answer and want points

Cool DRod, thank you—I thought I remembered you saying something like this somewhere else, but couldn't remember where.

So that fucking sucks, though. Outboard FX eat up tracks. Womp.

It gives you a bit more control though

Yeah, I'm definitely into it, just might have to opt for one of the 16 track versions. They also have at least one more aux, I think two more in the case of the Soundcraft. My big reason for doing this was routing some of my electronic stuff, especially my Drumbrute. It's mono but has individual outs for tracks, so I can pan them and use effects, etc.

This kind of stuff really does give me a headache, though. Plus like Behndy mentioned earlier, it's much more fun to spend money on noisemakers than shit like this.

It really is, but it can also make the noisemakers you have more fun to work with, new possibilities and stuff. I personally can't wait til I can justify buying a patchbay.

This is why studios have a large amount of channels. An alternative is a patchbay as said above. That way you just have one channel as the return and everything else is just patched.

You could also look into a mastering console depending on how many sources you have. They're harder to find but they work more similarly to a tabletop bypass looper

Yeah it makes total sense now. I think I just didn't see the obvious because it's surprisingly basic.

The basic-ness of utility stuff is wonderful and why it is so useful. It's almost like super simple programming in that a load of basic setup can get you really interesting results.

If you find a console with inserts, that's similar to what you were thinking. Only problem is most inserts won't have a level of mix control. And there is usually only one available per channel.