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I am considering getting a mixer for band practice. The model I'm looking at (Zoom L-12) has 5 individual submixes meant to be used as headphone monitoring outputs.

What has struck me when I looked at it, was the possibility to reroute the submix back into the mixer again. An example connection could look like this:

enter image description here

The path could work like this:

  • Blue: dry guitar signal using High-Z input
  • Orange: dry guitar signal again, from the A submix to e.g. amp modeler
  • Green: wet guitar signal
  • Red: actual main mix

What this gives me is e.g. ability to mix dry/wet guitar signal in main mix, record the dry signal for reamping etc.

Is there anything that would prevent this from working? I know that master outputs can't be used that way because they could form an infinite loop that amplifies the signal, but in this case I could mix that so that the A submix doesn't receive the track 2 at all (to avoid the feedback loop specifically).

Bartek Banachewicz
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  • [This video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrKISMxPEeI) seems to be showing exactly the thing I'm after, but I'd still like a confirmation and some tips. – Bartek Banachewicz Mar 01 '19 at 11:27
  • Pretty sure i used to do similar about 25 yrs ago. Nothing's going to go bang, just keep the volumes down as you try it. – Tim Mar 01 '19 at 11:31
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    Just don't turn your aux send up on the channel that has the return. Unless you are going for feedback. ;) – b3ko Mar 01 '19 at 13:52
  • As other commenters have noted, just watch the levels. Treat the dry guitar as you would a guitar or microphone, and treat the "wet" guitar as you would a line level device. – Duston Mar 01 '19 at 15:09
  • I don't see how the levels alone would generate feedback in this set up. As long as the signal is routed correctly, there shouldn't be a problem with feedback. – Peter Mar 01 '19 at 22:32

1 Answers1

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This should be possible, but I see one potential problem:

The signal coming out of Phone 1 will not be high impedance (Hi-Z). So if you are sending it to a guitar effects unit or amp, you may not sound the same as plugging the guitar in directly.

A more traditional way to do this would be to utilize a DI box. In that case, you plug the guitar into the DI box, send the XLR-out on the DI box to channel 1 on the mixer, send the Thru-out on the DI box to your effects, and send the effected sound into channel 2 on your mixer. This way you can still mix the wet/dry levels while still matching impedances.

Peter
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  • That's a good point. That's what I actually wanted to do, albeit having a dibox integrated in the fx unit makes it even simpler. That was just one example, though, this idea could be applied to any other signal as well. – Bartek Banachewicz Mar 02 '19 at 06:49