This tip will certainly result in a cleaner sound and it's true with any signal chain; whether inputs to your audio card or mixing live sound - if it's not being used; it gets the mute.

When I run live sound, I almost always bus individual channels to subgroups (all vox to a group, drumkit to a group, guitars to a group, etc.) and then use the mute on the groups to manage the overall amount of 'noise-floor' that can get added up.

However, I must say that with most of the live mixing desks I've used in the past few years (Mostly Mackies and Allen & Heaths) the channels are pretty doggoned clean in and of themselves.

Mackie manuals do a nice job leading one through how to get the absolute best gain structure out of their desks - with the first step being to 'zero the board' - doing exactly what you suggest here. On a fresh setup, I'll actually take my hand and start at the right side of the board, and just run it along on the attenuation pots, from right to left, to spin all of the attenuators to zero. That way, even if I forget and leave an unused channel un-muted, it's not on a high-gain setting.

-Scott

Last edited by rockstar_not; 09/25/07 06:09 AM.
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