Mackie 802-VLZ3 Owner'S Manual Download

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Owner’

s Manual

Owner’s Manual

When doing live sound or mixdown, it’s often handy

to control the level of several channels with one knob.
That’s called subgrouping. Simply assign these channels
to the alt 3–4 mix, engage alt 3–4 in the source [30]
matrix, and the signals will appear at the control room
[10] and phones [11] outputs. If you want the alt 3–4
signals to go back into the main mix, engage the assign
to main mix [33] switch, and the control room/submix
[32] level control becomes the one knob to control the
levels of all the channels assigned to alt 3–4.

Another way to do the same thing is assign the chan-

nels to the alt 3–4 mix, then patch out of the alt 3–4
output [9] back into an unused stereo channel line
input [3]. If that’s your choice, don’t ever engage the
mute/alt 3–4 switch on that stereo channel, or you’ll
have every dog in the neighborhood howling at your
feedback loop.

Another benefit of the alt 3–4 feature is that it can

act as a “sip” (solo-in-place): just engage a channel's
mute/alt 3–4 switch and the alt 3–4 switch in the source
matrix and you’ll get that channel, all by itself, in the
control room and phones.

Mute/alt 3–4 is one of those controls that can bewil-

der newcomers, so take your time and play around with
it. Once you’ve got it down, you’ll probably think of a
hundred uses for it!

24. PAN

Pan adjusts the amount of channel signal sent to the

left versus the right outputs. On mono channels (ch. 1–3
or 3–8, with connections to the left input only) these
controls act as pan pots. On stereo channels (3–8) with
stereo connections to left and right inputs, the pan knob
works like the balance control on your home stereo.

Pan determines the fate of the main mix and alt 3–4

mix. With the pan knob hard left, the signal will feed
either main out left or alt output left, depending on the
position of the alt 3–4 switch [23]. With the knob hard
right, the signal feeds main out right or alt output right.

CONSTANT LOUDNESS ! ! !

The 802-VLZ3’s pan controls employ a design called

“Constant Loudness.” It has nothing to do with living
next to an all-night disco. As you turn the pan [24] knob
from left to right (thereby causing the sound to move
from the left to the center to the right), the sound will
appear to remain at the same volume (or loudness).

If you have a channel panned hard left (or right) and

reading 0 dB, it must dip down about 4 dB on the left
(or right) when panned center. To do otherwise (the
way brand X compact mixers do) would make the sound
appear much louder when panned center.

3-BAND EQ

The 802-VLZ3 has 3-band equalization at carefully

selected points — low shelving at 80 Hz, mid peaking at
2.5 kHz, and high shelving at 12 kHz. “Shelving” means
that the circuitry boosts or cuts all frequencies before or
past the specified frequency. For example, rotating the
low EQ knob 15 dB to the right will boost the bass at 80
Hz and lower, down to the lowest note you never heard.
“Peaking” means that certain frequencies form a “hill”
around the center frequency — 2.5 kHz in the case of
the mid EQ.

25. LOW EQ

This control gives you

up to 15 dB boost or cut
below 80 Hz. The circuit
is flat (no boost or cut) at
the center detent position.
This frequency represents
the punch in bass drums,
bass guitar, fat synth
patches, and some really
serious male singers.

Used in conjunction with

the low cut [5] switch,
you can boost the low EQ
without injecting a ton of
subsonic debris into the
mix.

26. MID EQ

Short for “midrange,”

this knob provides 15 dB
of boost or cut, centered
at 2.5 kHz, also flat at the
center detent. Midrange EQ
is often thought of as the
most dynamic, because the
frequencies that define any
particular sound are almost always found in this range.
You can create many interesting and useful EQ changes
by turning this knob down as well as up.

27. HI EQ

This control gives you up

to 15 dB boost or cut above
12 kHz, and it is also flat
at the detent. Use it to add
sizzle to cymbals, and an
overall sense of transpar-
ency, or edge to keyboards,
vocals, guitar and bacon
frying. Turn it down a little
to reduce sibilance, or to hide tape hiss.

100

10k

20k

–15

–10

–5

+10

+15

Mid EQ

100

10k

20k