How do the LS9 STIN Channels Work

[waynehoskins]

You're undoubtedly familiar with conventional Auxes, which are additional mixes at the channel level. Matrixes are additional mixes generated at the Group (and Master) level.

LS9 and other digital consoles blur the concept of Group and Aux by turning them into two versions of Mix, of which any of the 16 or so can be made one kind or the other, by different names: Group => Fixed Mix, Aux => Variable Mix.

Like Arlin said, M7CL extends this blurring by making Matrixes accessible from channels. Incredible flexibility there, though it sure changes the concept of Matrix. A theatre-sound colleague of mine, on a show we recently did, commented how stupid it was that on LS9 or PM5D or consoles other than M7CL, you couldn't route channels to matrixes -- "what good is that?". I think he first met matrixes on the M7, so the conventional matrix concept didn't make any sense.

Matrixes are wonderful for recording mixes, lobby or front-fill mixes, or anything where you might want to make a quick post-group mix and don't want to have to dial it in to an aux (especially if you're group-mixing, which you can't really on LS9). A classic application is you might want only vocals in the front fills, or you need x dB more drums in the recorders than in the PA.

[daver2]

In general I view Mixes as Groups (i.e. grouping together a number of 'similar' input channels - e.g. backing vocals) and then you can use the main L-C-R outputs for main FOH mix and the matrix mixers to feed other areas where sound is required - but you require a fundamentally different mix.

You can use Mixes (groups) directly for foldback, recording etc. They can be configured as pre-fade, post-fade and vari and fixed (meaning that you have a pot control or just on/off of each channel).

We have multiple areas in our Church (an overflow area - basically a corridor!) and a Recreation hall - all of which can be opened up with sliding partitions for a Sunday service. The sound requirements are totally different in all of these areas. For example, we feed some of the congregation ambient sound into the overflow and recreation hall - but that's the last thing we want in the main worship hall! The only way we can do this is to use matrix mixers for the additional two areas. Our instruments and vocals are grouped together in various 'mix' combinations so that by varying one mix fader we can vary the amount of (say) backing vocalists in all of the areas - or by varying the feed from this mix to the individual matrix's will allow us to 'tweak' the mix in the different other areas (if this sentence makes sense...)

If you scan the CMN threads you will find that this topic has been answered at some length.

I can PM you our Word document for our configuration if that would be of some help.

Dave