Telos NX12 user manual ‘Making do’ with an older console

12  Section 2

‘Making do’ with an older console

Consoles made before around 1990 rarely had good support for mix-minuses, and almost never for more than one or two. With one of these oldsters, some clever improvisation is going to be needed.

Here we describe a possible scenario that can be used as a starting point for your situation. We assume an older console with Program and Audition as the main busses. There is another bus of some kind that can be adapted for mix-minus application. We’ll call this the ‘Utility’ bus. All sources, including the hybrid, will be assigned to Program, so the audience can hear them, as usual. We will also assign most of these sources to Utility as well, just never the fader with the hybrid’s own audio.

This arrangement is flexible, allowing the operator to place any or all sources in Utility for the caller to hear. In our example we have the fortunate case that the console permits the Utility bus to be fed pre-fader, letting the announcer easily use the telephone system for off-air conversa- tions.

A recorder can be attached to the Utility and hybrid outputs to record announcer + phone audio. This is often done as shown here, with each signal to a separate track.

A drawback is the potential for the operator to accidentally put the hybrid in Utility, in which case it is no longer a mix-minus. To avoid this error, the signal path could be permanently disconnected by removing the summing resistors, or some such creative operation.

If no bus is available to feed the Nx12, you could use an external mixer that bridges the micro- phone inputs to achieve the same effect.

PGM Bus

Line{

Inputs

Utility Bus

Hybrid

To Telco

PGM Out

To Rec Ch.1

To Rec Ch.2