Behringer MX2004A User Manual

User’s Manual

Version 1.1 March 2001

MX2004A

ENGLISH

EURORACK

www.behringer.com

EURORACK MX2004A

SAFETY INSTRUCTIONS

CAUTION: To reduce the risk of electrical shock, do not remove

the cover (or back). No user serviceable parts inside; refer servicing to qualified personnel.

WARNING: To reduce the risk of fire or electrical shock, do not

expose this appliance to rain or moisture.

This symbol, wherever it appears, alerts you to the presence of uninsulated dangerous voltage inside the enclosure—voltage that may be sufficient to constitute a risk of shock.

DET AILED SAFETY INSTRUCTIONS:

All the safety and operation instructions should be read before the appliance is operated.

Retain Instructions:

The safety and operating instructions should be retained for future reference.

Heed Warnings:

All warnings on the appliance and in the operating instructions should be adhered to.

Follow instructions:

All operation and user instructions should be followed.

Water and Moisture:

The appliance should not be used near water (e.g. near a bathtub, washbowl, kitchen sink, laundry tub, in a wet basement, or near a swimming pool etc.).

Ventilation:

The appliance should be situated so that its location or position does not interfere with its proper ventilation. For example, the appliance should not be situated on a bed, sofa rug, or similar surface that may block the ventilation openings, or placed in a built-in installation, such as a bookcase or cabinet that may impede the flow of air through the ventilation openings.

Heat:

The appliance should be situated away from heat sources such as radiators, heat registers, stoves, or other appliance (including amplifiers) that produce heat.

Power Source:

The appliance should be connected to a power supply only of the type described in the operating instructions or as marked on the appliance.

Grounding or Polarization:

Precautions should be taken so that the grounding or polarization means of an appliance is not defeated.

Power-Cord Protection:

Power supply cords should be routed so that they are not likely to be walked on or pinched by items placed upon or against them, paying particular attention to cords and plugs, convenience receptacles and the point where they exit from the appliance.

Cleaning:

The appliance should be cleaned only as recommended by the manufacturer.

Non-use Periods:

The power cord of the appliance should be unplugged from the outlet when left unused for a long period of time.

Object and Liquid Entry:

Care should be taken so that objects do not fall and liquids are not spilled into the enclosure through openings.

Damage Requiring Service:

The appliance should be serviced by qualified service personnel when:

- The power supply cord or the plug has been damaged; or

- Objects have fallen, or liquid has been spilled into the appliance; or

- The appliance has been exposed to rain; or

- The appliance does not appear to operate normally or exhibits a marked change in performance; or

- The appliance has been dropped, or the enclosure damaged.

Servicing:

The user should not attempt to service the appliance beyond that is described in the Operating Instructions. All other servicing should be referred to qualified service personnel.

This symbol, wherever it appears, alerts you to important operating and maintenance instructions in the accompanying literature. Read the manual.

EURORACK MX2004A

FOREWORD

Dear Customer, Welcome to the team of EURORACK users and thank you very much for expressing your confidence in

BEHRINGER products by purchasing this unit. It is one of my most pleasant tasks to write this letter to you, because it is the culmination of many months of

hard work delivered by our engineering team to reach a very ambitious goal: To produce a compact mixer, which fully satisfies your and our expectations and delivers a superior sound quality, easy operation and technical specifications. In addition to that the mixer is affordable for almost every musician. The task to design the EURORACK certainly meant a great deal of responsibility, which we assumed by focusing on you, the discerning user and musician. It also meant a lot of work and night shifts to accomplish this goal. But it was fun, too. Developing a product usually brings a lot of people together, and what a great feeling it is when everybody who participated in such a project can be proud of what we’ve achieved.

It is our philosophy to share our joy with you, because you are the most important member of the BEHRINGER family. With your highly competent suggestions for new products you’ve greatly contributed to shaping our company and making it successful. In return, we guarantee you uncompromising quality (manufactured under ISO9000 certified management system) as well as excellent technical and audio properties at an extremely favorable price. All of this will enable you to fully unfold your creativity without being hampered by budget constraints.

We are often asked how we can make it to produce such high-grade devices at such unbelievably low prices. The answer is quite simple: it’s you, our customers! Many satisfied customers means large sales volumes enabling us to get better conditions of purchase for components, etc. Isn’t it only fair to pass this benefit back to you? Because we know that your success is our success, too!

I would like to thank the following people, whose help on “Project EURORACK MX2004A” has made it all possible:

▲ The existing users of BEHRINGER equipment (whose comments and suggestions have made them the

most important members of the BEHRINGER design team),

▲ Thorsten (for this marvellous manual layout), ▲ Bernhard (Rammi) (whose technical ingenuity is unique), ▲ C.W. for the fine mechanics (key-phrase “Tooling modification”), ▲ and all the others, who have made very personal contributions.

My friends, it’s been worth the trouble!

Thank you very much,

Uli Behringer

EURORACK MX2004A

MX2004A

Ultra low-noise 20-channel, 4-bus mixer

s 8 mono input channels with gold-plated XLRs and phone connectors

s 4 stereo input channels with balanced TRS connectors

s 2 additional multi-functional stereo aux returns

s Pre and post-fader aux sends for external effects devices and monitoring

s Master aux sends with gain control

s Extremely high headroom—offering more dynamic range

EURORACK

s Ultra low-noise discrete microphone preamps with +48 V phantom power

s Balanced inputs and main outputs

s Peak LEDs, insert facilities and switchable low-cut filter on all mono channels

s Ultra-musical 3-band EQ on all mono channels

s Mute/Alt 3-4, solo-in-place and pre-fader-listen function on all channels

s Separate main mix, control room and headphones outputs

s 2-track inputs assignable to main mix or control room/headphones outputs

s Highly accurate 13-digit bargraph meters on output

s High-quality faders and sealed potentiometers

s Rugged design power supply ensures superior transient response

s State-of-the-art 4580 ICs and high quality components ensure crystal-clear audio performance and

excellent noise figures

s Rugged construction ensures long life even under the most demanding conditions

s Manufactured under ISO9000 certified management system

EURORACK MX2004A

T ABLE OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................7

1.1 Architecture .................................................................................................................................... 7

1.2 Before you begin ............................................................................................................................. 8

1.2.1 PSU (power supply unit) ....................................................................................................... 8

1.2.2 Warranty ............................................................................................................................... 8

1.2.3 Packing ................................................................................................................................8

1.2.4 Rack mounting the MX2004A ................................................................................................ 8

2. MONO INPUT CHANNEL ....................................................................................................... 8

2.1 Input level setting ............................................................................................................................ 8

2.2 Equalizer......................................................................................................................................... 9

2.3 Aux sends ...................................................................................................................................... 9

2.4 Routing, fading and muting.............................................................................................................. 9

2.5 Insert ............................................................................................................................................ 10

3. STEREO INPUT CHANNEL ................................................................................................. 10

3.1 Input level setting .......................................................................................................................... 10

3.2 Equalizer....................................................................................................................................... 10

3.3 Aux sends .................................................................................................................................... 10

3.4 Routing ......................................................................................................................................... 10

4. MAIN SECTION .....................................................................................................................10

4.1 Aux sends .................................................................................................................................... 10

4.2 Stereo aux returns .........................................................................................................................11

4.3 Metering.........................................................................................................................................11

4.4 Solo function ..................................................................................................................................11

4.5 2-track input and output ................................................................................................................ 12

4.6 Monitoring ..................................................................................................................................... 12

4.7 Alt 3-4 output ................................................................................................................................ 12

5. SETTING UP .........................................................................................................................13

5.1 Selecting inputs ............................................................................................................................ 13

5.2 Initializing channels for gain setting ............................................................................................... 13

5.3 Auditioning a signal and setting up a channel................................................................................13

5.4 Desk normalization ....................................................................................................................... 13

5.5 Multitrack initialization .................................................................................................................. 14

5.6 Recording levels ............................................................................................................................ 14

5.7 Track sheet................................................................................................................................... 14

6. APPLICATIONS.....................................................................................................................14

6.1 Keyboard mixing, live or in the studio ............................................................................................ 14

6.2 Live gig with simultaneous 2-track recording .................................................................................15

6.3 Project studio—laying vocals to tape ............................................................................................ 16

6.4 Patchbay ...................................................................................................................................... 17

6.4.1 Patchbay configuration........................................................................................................ 17

6.4.2 Parallel ............................................................................................................................... 18

6.4.3 Half-normalled ..................................................................................................................... 18

6.4.4 Normalled ........................................................................................................................... 18

6.4.5 Open ................................................................................................................................... 18

6.4.6 Patchbay organization ........................................................................................................ 19

6.4.7 Looming problems .............................................................................................................. 20

EURORACK MX2004A

7. TECHNICAL BACKGROUND .............................................................................................. 20

7.1 Mixing........................................................................................................................................... 20

7.1.1 Equalization ........................................................................................................................ 20

7.1.2 Gain optimization ................................................................................................................ 21

8. INSTALLATION .....................................................................................................................21

8.1 EURORACK MX2004A connections .............................................................................................. 21

8.2 Connections.................................................................................................................................. 22

8.3 Modifications................................................................................................................................. 24

8.4 Expanding..................................................................................................................................... 24

9. SPECIFICATIONS.................................................................................................................25

10.WARRANTY...........................................................................................................................26

EURORACK MX2004A

1. INTRODUCTION

Congratulations. In purchasing our EURORACK you have acquired a mixer with incredible versatility and audio performance. Your EURORACK is built to the same outstanding quality as our top-of-the range console, the BEHRINGER EURODESK MX9000.

Later we will see how adding the BEHRINGER ULTRALINK PRO MX882 to your system can inexpensively expand the capacity and flexibility of you mixing power even further. First of all, however, we want to take you on a guided tour of your new rack-mounted console—the BEHRINGER EURORACK MX2004A.

We recommend that you experiment with your EURORACK away from the pressures of a recording session or live concert, in order to get a feel for it. It is a musical instrument. Learn to play it well.

Next to the specifications you will find some pages with drawings showing the front and rear panel of your EURORACK respectively. Keep them turned over, lying to the left of the text pages, while studying the manual.

All functions will be numbered consistently throughout the manual, whether they be in the text or on an illustration.

Most specialist subjects are not really all that difficult provided you understand the language used, and the vocabulary of mixing is pretty straightforward. Nevertheless it is as well to be clear about what certain terms mean. A “slot” in a recorder will always be referred to as a track, while that in a mixer will invariably be a channel. I will attempt to be as unambiguous as possible with terms, since much confusion can arise from sloppy definitions.

1.1 Architecture

The configuration is 20 into 4 (2+2) into 2. There are eight mono channels, four stereo channels and two stereo aux returns. In addition there is a 2-track input routable to the main mix. A channel is always routed to the main mix outs unless Alt 3-4 is selected, in which case its signal is sent to outputs 3 and 4 instead. Outputs 3 and 4 may be blended with the main mix at the control room output via a switch .

Mono input channels

Channels 1 to 8 are mono, with a choice of balanced microphone or line inputs. The vintage-style high-current discrete microphone amps are of the same incredible quality as those found on the acclaimed BEHRINGER EURODESK MX9000, while a large external power supply ensures low noise and superior transient response at all times.

Stereo input channels

A further 8 line inputs on the MX2004A are configured as 4 stereo input channels. These are ideal for multitrack tape returns, or for accepting outputs from MIDI and other electronic instruments.

Channel outputs

A high-quality true logarithmic 60-mm fader feeds the main mix or Alt 3-4 bus via the channel pan.

Aux sends

There are two aux send buses on the MX2004A.

Stereo aux returns (stereo line inputs)

The stereo aux returns lie directly above the master aux sends. These can be routed to the cue send (i.e. aux send 1 set to pre-fader) directly by pressing , in order to enable performers to get a “wet” foldback mix. The aux returns may also be used for mixing in extra MIDI instruments etc.

Main mix output

Main mix output level is via a pair of high-quality true-log 60-mm stereo faders and is monitored by a pair of accurate 13-segment bargraph peak meters, surrounded by 4 status LEDs.

In addition, your MX2004A provides an adjustable phones output, a separate 2-track in/output and the abovementioned Alt 3-4 output.

Channels 1 to 8 have overload LEDs, while the L and R outputs have 13-segment bargraph meters. The L/R meters double up as mono PFL or stereo solo meters. The meters should average around 0 dB during loud passages. If they read persistently higher, or are peaking above +10 dB, reduce either the main L/R faders and/ or channel faders, or channel input gain. Perhaps the PFL sequence should be repeated.

1. INTRODUCTION

EURORACK MX2004A

1.2 Before you begin

1.2.1 PSU (power supply unit)

Any amplifier circuit is limited in its transient response by the available current. Every mixer has numerous line level operational amplifiers (op-amps) inside. When being driven hard, many desks begin to show signs of stress due to power supply limitations. Not so with the EURORACK MX2004A. The sound will always stay clean and crisp right up to the operating limits of the op-amps themselves, thanks to our generous 40 W external power supply unit.

Please connect the PSU with the EURORACK MX2004A PSU connector on the rear panel of your mixer and switch on your MX2004A with the POWER switch .

+ Do not connect the PSU to the EURORACK while the PSU is connected to the mains supply.

Connect switched-off desk and PSU first before you connect the PSU to the mains supply. Lastly switch on desk.

1.2.2 Warranty

Please take the time to have the warranty card filled out completely by your specialized dealer, and return it within 14 days after the date of purchase, so as to be entitled to benefit from our extended warranty. You may also use our online registration option available on the Internet at www.behringer.com. You will find the serial number of your MX2004A on the rear panel.

1.2.3 Packing

Your BEHRINGER EURORACK was carefully packed in the factory and the packaging was designed to protect the unit from rough handling. Nevertheless, we recommend that you carefully examine the packaging and its contents for any signs of physical damage, which may have occurred in transit.

+ If the unit is damaged, please do NOT return it to us, but notify your dealer and the shipping

company immediately, otherwise claims for damage or replacement may not be granted. Shipping claims must be made by the consignee.

1.2.4 Rack mounting the MX2004A

Enclosed in the shipping box you will find a 19" rackmount kit. If you want to make your MX2004A a rack mixer, loosen the screws from the side panels and use them to fix the rack ears (note, that there is a left and a right one).

+ Be sure that there is enough space around the unit for cooling and please do not place the

MX2004A on high temperature devices such as power amplifiers etc. to avoid overheating.

+ When switched on, parts of the desk and the power supply unit will become very warm, which

is normal during operation.

2. MONO INPUT CHANNEL

Each channel is equipped with a balanced line input 1/4" TRS connector , and an XLR microphone input

. Phantom powering is switchable from the back panel .

+ When using the microphone input please make sure nothing is connected to the same channel’s

line input, and vice versa.

The gain circuit has an unusually wide range, obviating the need for mic/line switching. The crucial operating levels +4 dBu and -10 dBV are clearly and accurately marked .

2.1 Input level setting

Channel input level is determined by the GAIN control . Use the PFL/SOLO switch to bring the channel input onto the left and right bargraph meters respectively. This also sends the PFL/solo-ed signal to the left and right speakers.

2. MONO INPUT CHANNEL

+ 18 hidden pages