Proper Gain Staging Of Other Equipment - Alesis MULTIMIX 12R Reference Manual

Operating Instructions

Proper gain staging of other equipment

The total noise performance of your system depends on proper gain
control of all the elements. A "noisy mixer" is usually a quiet mixer in a
system whose gain structure is incorrect. As a good starting point, set
most volume level controls of other equipment at 3/4 or 75% of full.
This will decrease the possibility of overload distortion and keep the
amount of background noise to a minimum.
Turn down amplifier levels: In particular, don't set the input controls
of a power amplifier "wide open" if you have to run the faders of the
mixer in the bottom half of the travel (and the meter of the Multimix
12R well below the "0" mark) to keep the system from being too loud
or feeding back. It's better to run the mixer at its normal level, and
turn down the amplifier's controls for the desired level. By turning the
amplifier's own volume controls down, you turn down the residual
noise of everything that precedes it in the signal chain, resulting in a
quieter, more controllable system.
However, if the mixer output is too loud, and the input stage of the
amplifier being used is an active circuit (instead of a passive voltage
divider type), it is possible to clip the preamp stage of the amplifier and
cause nasty distortion even if the amp level is low. Use good
judgment and consult the manual for your amplifier for more
information.
Distortion caused by EQ: If a large amount of EQ is used, it may
become necessary to decrease either the trim control, or the channel
fader, or both. The EQ is capable of adding quite a bit of gain and is a
frequent cause of overload distortion problems. The PEAK LEDs
monitor the signal after the EQ circuit, both pre and post fader.
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