Mixing Desk Allen and Heath GLD80 #

An image of the mixing desk from the top down

G05 Features a GLD80 Mixing Desk which manages the sound in the space. This mixer was picked because of it’s large output channel capacity.

You can learn more by booking a session with Rob or reading the Manual here: GLD80 Manual

Mixer Layout #

If you are not familiar with mixing desks, most have two sections, inputs and outputs, this is no different with our desk. Inputs come in the left and outputs are controlled on the right. As you look at the board, you will notice two groups of faders. These control how loud each of the inputs is overall, and how loud each of the outputs are overall. You may notice that there are far fewer physical faders than there are channels in the room. I mentioned before that the space has a 12.2 configuration, so the space has 14 speakers, but there are only 8 output faders. This is because this is a Digital Desk. This means that all of the sound processing is done digitally, compared to more traditional analog sound desks that mixed sound by physically combining electrical signals. We can therefore map the faders to different sound channels using the Layer Buttons in the center and far right of the console. This is core principal of digital sound desks and can take a moment to get used to. Try pressing the layer buttons to see the different channels on the fader banks.

Inputs / Outputs #

The inputs and outputs from the mixer are located in the rack at the left of the tech booth. There is one cat5 cable between the mixing console and the Input/Output Panel in the rack. This means if we need to we can move the Desk part of the mixer out into the room.

Inputs from a Computer #

At present the easiest way to get sound from a computer into a mixer is to use a 3.5mm jack to stereo XLR cable. This works for any computer, phone or other device with a 3.5mm headphone output. If you need more than 2 channels, for example to make a 12 channel work, you can use the MOTU 16A Interface in the space, which can be connected to up to 16 channels of the main mixer. This is currently connected to the Mac Mini in the space which can output 12 channels via Reaper, a Digital Audio Workstation Software.