Mackie 1402-VLZPRO OUTPUT SECTION DESCRIPTION, MAIN MIX, VLZ MIX, ARCHITECTURE, SOURCE MATRIX

OUTPUT SECTION DESCRIPTION

Still with us? Good for you. Here come the tricky parts, where the mixing is really done.

MAIN MIX

As the name implies, this fader controls the levels of signals sent to the MAIN OUTPUTS: XLR , 1⁄4" and RCA TAPE OUT . All channels and AUX RETURNS that are not muted or turned fully down will wind up in the

MAIN MIX.

Fully down is off, the “U” marking is unity gain, and fully up provides 10dB additional gain. This additional gain will typically never be needed, but once again, it’s nice to know it’s there. These are the faders to pull down at the end of the song when you want The Great Fade-Out.

VLZ MIX

ARCHITECTURE

When designing a mixing

circuit, the lowest noise and best crosstalk specs are achieved by using Very Low Impedance (VLZ). To implement VLZ in a mixer, the power supply must be able to deliver plenty of current to the circuitry. That’s why those “wall wart” mixers are often noisy – they can’t power a VLZ circuit.

At Mackie, audio quality is much more important than the price of wall warts. All of our mixers employ VLZ and built-in power supplies that deliver more than enough current, resulting in sonic specifications that rival consoles upwards of $50,000!

SOURCE MATRIX

Typically, the engineer sends the MAIN MIX to an audience (if live) or a mixdown deck (if recording). But what if the engineer needs to hear something other than the MAIN MIX? With the 1402-VLZ PRO, the engineer has several choices of what to listen to. This is one of those tricky parts, so buckle up.

Via the SOURCE switches, you can choose to listen to any combination of MAIN MIX, ALT 3-4and TAPE. By now, you probably know what the MAIN MIX is. ALT 3-4is that additional stereo mix bus. TAPE is the stereo signal coming in from the TAPE IN RCA jacks .

Selections made in the SOURCE matrix deliver stereo signals to the CONTROL ROOM, PHONES and METERS. With no switches en- gaged, there will be no signal at these outputs and no meter indication.

The exception to that is the SOLO function

. Regardless of the SOURCE matrix selec- tion, engaging a channel’s SOLO switch will replace that selection with the SOLO signal, also sent to the CONTROL ROOM, PHONES and METERS. This is what makes the Level Setting Procedure so easy to do.

WARNING: Pushing in both the TAPE button (in the SOURCE matrix) and

ASSIGN TO MAIN MIXcan create a feedback path between TAPE IN and TAPE OUT.

Make sure your tape deck is not in record, record-pause or input monitor mode when you engage these switches, or make sure the CONTROL ROOM / PHONES fader is fully down (off).

UU

OO +10		OO	+20	1
AUX 1 MASTER			U NORMALLED
PRE				2
POST				AUX
AUX 1	EFX TO
		OO	+20 RETURN
SELECT	MONITOR
C-R/SOURCE		LEFT	RIGHT
		0dB=0dBu
			28
MAIN MIX			10
			7
ALT 3–4			4
			2
			0
TAPE			2
			4
ASSIGN			7
			10	LEVEL
TO MAIN MIX
				SET
			20
NORMAL (AFL)			30
LEVEL SET (PFL)
SOLO
MODE		RUDE
		SOLO
PHANTOM POWER		LIGHT
CTL ROOM /SUBMIX		MAIN MIX

dBdB

1010

5	5
U	U
5	5
10	10
20	20
30	30
40	40
50	50
60	60
OO	OO

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