Monitor desk question

David

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Nov 19, 2002, 5:48:30 PM11/19/02

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Hi,

I found myself in monitor worlds last weekend and was happily enjoying
myself when one of the roadies asked me what one of the buttons did. I was
somewhat embarrassed to admit that I had no idea, in fact I had never even
really noticed it before. The desk was a Soundcraft, model escapes me, 24
channel, 8 sends. In each master send group there was a large white button
marked DIM. (avoid the obvious jokes, my ego is fragile enough already after
being stumped by the roadie). I tried playing with it but it did not make a
difference to anything that I could see, sonically or visually.

I poked around the soundcraft site but it seems that manuals are not
downloading at the moment so I have to humble myself yet again and ask for
advice.<grin>

Any ideas?

Thanks David

Phildo

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Nov 19, 2002, 5:50:08 PM11/19/02

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"David" <dfar...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:2dzC9.13528$bh1.1...@news1.telusplanet.net...

> Hi,
>
> I found myself in monitor worlds last weekend and was happily enjoying
> myself when one of the roadies asked me what one of the buttons did. I
was
> somewhat embarrassed to admit that I had no idea, in fact I had never
even
> really noticed it before. The desk was a Soundcraft, model escapes me,
24
> channel, 8 sends. In each master send group there was a large white
button
> marked DIM. (avoid the obvious jokes, my ego is fragile enough already
after
> being stumped by the roadie). I tried playing with it but it did not
make a
> difference to anything that I could see, sonically or visually.
>

It cuts the output of that group by 6db. Useful is it's feeding back and
you need to cut it quickly without killing the whole monitor send.

Phildo

E. Hill

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Nov 19, 2002, 8:50:03 PM11/19/02

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Never used one, but supposedly it cuts the output by a preset amount. On at
least one Soundcraft board, it's 20 dBu, but it can be changed by internal
links. It might affect only the headphones or monitor output, though.

Somebody else will have more details, I'm sure.

Eric

Doyle Hodges

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Nov 20, 2002, 1:46:42 AM11/20/02

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"David" <dfar...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:2dzC9.13528$bh1.1...@news1.telusplanet.net...

> Hi,
>
> I found myself in monitor worlds last weekend and was happily enjoying

> myself when one of the roadies asked me what one of the buttons did...

Hi David,

The button you refer to is the "Diminish" switch (I love british
nomenclature), which inserts a fixed, predictable amount of pad in the
output of that channel. The manual on that console (excuse me, "desk") will
give you the specific loss for that model. In the old days we used to call
this a "duck" button, because you could duck the level on that channel as
needed, and then return to the preset level at any time.

David

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Nov 20, 2002, 6:39:53 PM11/20/02

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"David" <dfar...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:2dzC9.13528$bh1.1...@news1.telusplanet.net...

Thanks for the answers. It turns out that the desk I was on has had some
mods done to it (which probably means beer spillage) and as a result that
feature does not work. Now I only feel dumb for not noticing it before since
pushing the button actually did not do anything.

Thanks,
David