Mixing console

In audio, a mixing console, or audio mixer, also called a mixing desk, audio production console, soundboard or simply mixer, is an electronic device for combining (also called ""mixing""), routing, and changing the level, timbre and/or dynamics of audio signals. A mixer can mix analog or digital signals, depending on the type of mixer. The modified signals (voltages or digital samples) are summed to produce the combined output signals.Mixing consoles are used in many applications, including recording studios, public address systems, sound reinforcement systems, broadcasting, television, and film post-production. A typical, simple application combines signals from two microphones (each used by vocalists singing a duet, perhaps) into an amplifier that drives one set of speakers simultaneously. In live performances, the signal from the mixer usually goes directly to an amplifier (unless the mixer has a built in power amplifier or is connected to powered speakers). A nightclub stage's mixer may have 24 channels for mixing the signals from a rock or pop rhythm section and a vocalist. A mixing console for a large concert may have 48 channels. A mixing console in a professional recording studio may have as many as 72 channels.In practice, mixers do more than simply mix. They can provide phantom power for capacitor microphones; pan control; filtering and equalization; routing facilities; and monitoring facilities, whereby one of a number of sources can be routed to loudspeakers for listening, often without affecting the mixer's main output.Among the highest quality bootleg recordings of live performances are so-called soundboard recordings sourced from the mixer output.