Headphone mix without extra amp?

[greenblobParticipant]

Hey,
My first post on the forum. Hopefully a simple question. 🙂

Is there a way to get a wired headphone mix directly out of the Qu-Pac that doesn’t require the use of one of the mix outputs? eg, mix out 9-10 or alt out routed an additional seperate headphone amp?)

I ask as we are in the process of configuring wireless IEM’s for our band (the Qu-pac has been awesome for this so far), and I had the inital plan that our drummer would use a wired IEM direcly out of the Qu-Pack phones socket (Qu-Pac/iem rack sits next to him onstage). It now appears I cannot configure the phones output with its own mix (drummer needs the click, the rest of us dont). Split snake into the house desk will run FOH at most shows, but occasionally we will need to use the Qu-Pac as both monitor and FOH mixer for smaller diy gigs. Does that rule out (less than ultimate) the PAFL option?

Hopefully this makes sense. If we need to try and jam a headphone amp in the rack, so be it, but I’m hoping I’m missing an obvious solution.
Thanks!

[AndreasModerator]

Use LR for the drummer and a Mix for FOH?

[MarkPAmanParticipant]

Have you run out of mixes? Remember that you can turn the groups into stereo mixes too. Then you just need to PFL/AFL the mix output for the drummer to use the internal headphone amp.

[[XAP]BobParticipant]

Or PFL the Click and whatever else he wants to listen to?

[DavidCoParticipant]

Following Bob’s suggestion, I’d say it would be better to AFL the mix he would like to use. Of course that complicates things when using the mixer as a FoH mixer, but the headphone jack (like any other mixer) is tied to the PAFL bus.

For what it’s worth you could use a beltpack headphone amplifier, which would alleviate the rack space requirement.

DC

[greenblobParticipant]

Use LR for the drummer and a Mix for FOH?
I hadnt thought of that. Using a mix out for FOH may confuse other users of the board, but it’s a nice easy solution. Nice thinking.

Have you run out of mixes? Remember that you can turn the groups into stereo mixes too. Then you just need to PFL/AFL the mix output for the drummer to use the internal headphone amp.

Nope we have mix 9-10 free. I think this is the route we will go in the short term. Havnt messed with groups as yet. Still very much digital mixer newbie. I can see how that would work though.

For what it’s worth you could use a beltpack headphone amplifier, which would alleviate the rack space requirement.

Belt pack. Dammit, that didn’t occur to me either. I like this idea. This would allow me to keep all the routing nice and simple so other users can easily follow whats going on, and not have to shoehorn more stuff into the rack. It will require the drummer to remember to turn the belt pack off after use, and keep extra batteries on hand though.

I think I’ll cover my bases and do a combination of the suggetions you guys offered. Use mix 9-10 to feed a belt pack the drummer can wear, and have a group mix ready made to be PFL’d to the phones out in case the belt pack goes down. The click is pretty important as we have an automated sequenced light show so we like to cover our bases with backups.

Anyone see any traps I could fall into with this setup?

Thanks for all the suggestions. Possibly the most helpful forum I’ve been on.

Cheers!

[MarkPAmanParticipant]

“I think I’ll cover my bases and do a combination of the suggetions you guys offered. Use mix 9-10 to feed a belt pack the drummer can wear, and have a group mix ready made to be PFL’d to the phones out in case the belt pack goes down. ”

You don’t need a group mix as well. If his belt pack goes, he just needs to plug his headphones into the mixer, select the Mix 9&10 master, and press PFL/AFL (it will be an AFL signal).

[greenblobParticipant]

“You don’t need a group mix as well. If his belt pack goes, he just needs to plug his headphones into the mixer, select the Mix 9&10 master, and press PFL/AFL (it will be an AFL signal).”

Duh, yeah that makes sense. I feel a little daft for overlooking that option. Lol.

I’ll give the Mix 9-10 AFL setup with the phones plugged directly into the headphone out a whirl at practice tonight.

Thanks for your help everyone!

[David HaughtonKeymaster]

@greenblob Hi Brad, welcome to the community 🙂 I agree with Mark, using a belt-pack headphone amp from a mix out would be the best solution both for local volume control and audio quality, but also leaves PFL/AFL for FOH use.
Cheers.
Harry.

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