ABSTRACT
A mixing console (or a desk – both terms are interchangeable) is an independent hardware device used alongside a multitrack recorder at the heart of any recording or mixing session in professional studios. Consoles vary in design, features and implementation. Products range from compact 8-channel desks through 96-channel large-format analog consoles to large-format digital consoles that can handle more than 500 input signals. In a mixing session, the console’s individual channels are fed with the individual tracks from the multitrack recorder. (It is worth noting the terminology – a channel exists on a console; a track exists on a multitrack recorder.) The mixing console offers three main functionalities:
l Summing – combining the audio signals is the heart of the mixing process; most importantly, various channels are summed to stereo via the mix bus.
