Flow Mein
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Brooklyn, New York

I'm playing an open mic at my school soon. I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to mixers/speakers/amps. I have a DMG and a GBC, and I was going to play acoustic guitar along with some tracks. I was originally just going to buy a Y splitter and plug them straight into a guitar amp, but I heard that that can potential damage my game boys. So then I was looking at the Behringer xenyx 502 mixer, but that kind of confused me; do I want the Game Boys going into the TRS jack or the RCA? Could I just connect them with a 1/8th inch to single 1/4th inch? Because the 'frequently bought together' items with the mixer are 1/8th inch to dual 1/4th inch, and I don't know what's ideal for Game Boys. Would it be bad to output the audio to guitar amp?

Help me, CM.O. I'm dumb and I don't know what I'm doing.

Last edited by Flow Mein (Mar 11, 2014 2:35 pm)

herr_prof
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You should ask the people running it if you can play something like a ipod into their pa (if they have one). The equipment required will be exactly the same, and avoid a confusing conversation with the organizers.

Jake Allison
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Tulsa, OK

PA ftw
you would survive if you used a guitar amp though

Fudgers
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Indiana

hi!

a few things,

-a y cable can NEVER sum signals, only split them

-I assume your acoustic has piezo pickups on it? In this case you will need an unbalanced/mono TS cable. These cables have only two conductors and will only work for mono signal. You can differentiate this type of cable from a TRS by the fact that the connectors have only one band around them, rather than two (http://content.answcdn.com/main/content … E/TRRS.GIF).

-For your gameboy, you need to send a stereo signal. This means using a 1/8th TRS cable capable of sending a stereo signal. These connectors use the same system of bands to differentiate themselves, so in your case you'd be looking for a connector with two bands, just like a headphone connector.

-A mixer like the xenyx which you could use to sum your signals will only have mono inputs. This means you will need to split the two Left and Right channels of signal that your gameboy is sending from your jack. A cable like this: http://www.amazon.com/Hosa-CMP153-Cable … 000068O3C) would be wired for this already. In this case the white end of the cable would go to the input labeled L on your stereo channel and red end to R (either channel strip 2/3 or 4/5 on the xenyx). Your guitar could just go to the first TS input on the mixer.

-Unless you pan your channels, you can just send one TS cable from either the L or R Main Out to the engineer. This will give him control of your overall level, but you will have control over the balance between your acoustic and gameboy. practice a little with the setup beforehand, so you can have a general idea of what your mix will look and sound like.

-I'm not sure what the open mic setup looks like, but if there aren't PA's available you can just send your mix out to a guitar amp. That being said if there are PA's set up already it's a better idea to just send your mix out to the engineer so he/she can set you at an appropriate level and mix to your vocals if you have any

sorry if that was longwinded or came off as condescending! I hope it was helpful and good luck on your gig smile

Last edited by Fudgers (Mar 11, 2014 6:28 pm)

Flow Mein
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Brooklyn, New York

It wasn't longwinded or condescending at all. It was exactly what I needed to read. Thanks! heart

SketchMan3
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NC in the US of America

If you need more info feel free to search for the threads we have on this topic. We have at least 2 (not including this one). Good luck.

Flow Mein
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Brooklyn, New York

should the volume of my main mix be high? or leave it low and then increase the volume on my amp?

Fudgers
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Indiana

this sort of depends on the guitar amp youre using. some amps will distort when fed a line level signal, and sending a mic level may be the only way to have a clean mix. others will be fine accepting a line level signal and you can use very little gain on the amp to get a loud mix; be very careful settin your levels in this scenario though. zero your amp out before sending any signal and experiment with it a bit.

a mic level signal means more amplifies noise, but depending on the amp this could also mean distortion.