Unbalanced audio, that just requires two conductors
It is a positive and a ground and unbalanced audio is not good for long cable runs
Because it cannot reject interference
Balanced audio on the other hand requires three conductors
A positive a negative and a ground
And that’s much better for sending signal, audio signal over long distances
Because it has the ability to reject interference
We’ll talk more about that in another video it’s a little bit more complicated
“In the red” you might hear this term “in the red”
That basically means you are about to clip or overload the circuit if you’re not already
doing so
So that’s when you will see a meter, a VU meter a peak program meter
In the green, that’s good, in the yellow that’s ok too
But when it gets up into the red you’re in danger of clipping and distorting
So you want to keep your signal out of the red
Channel fader, so a channel fader is that sliding volume control device
Volume control component at the bottom of a channel strip
Then you have your master fader
And that is also a sliding potentiometer and that controls the master volume
So all the channels that are being routed to the master bus will be controlled by the
master fader
So you can bring the house level up and down with the master fader
As opposed to the channel faders which control individual instruments and microphones
That are plugged in to those specific channels
Next, feedback, ok I’m sure we’ve all heard feedback at some point
If you turn your microphone gain all the way up
And you turn the fader up and you route that channel to the main bus
And you turn the master fader up and then you point the microphone at the main speaker
You will get this high pitched squeal or in some cases you’ll get this hum
It could be a combination of the two
And that is basically when the microphone is picking up the signal that’s coming out
of the speaker
Whether it’s a monitor speaker or a main speaker it doesn’t really matter
Whichever microphone, whichever speaker the microphone is pointed at it will feedback
And begin picking up the same sound which it is processing through
And then you get this infinite loop and it just starts to ring
And everybody holds their ears and they look at the sound guy like what the heck are you
doing
You never want to let that happen
You should always be ready to get rid of feedback in case it happens
You should never get to the point where there is feedback
But we all know sometimes mistakes happen
So you want to be ready to know which faders to go to when the feedback starts
Decibel, ok decibels are kind of interesting
Everyone knows that’s the unit of how we measure volume
But it’s actually a relative dimensionless unit used to compare two quantities right
So you’re comparing an A and a B
An inch is a fixed amount and foot is a fixed amount
A decibel isn’t any fixed amount it’s a comparison or a ratio
That shows the difference between two quantities
If you think about it the human ear is kind of an amazing thing
You can hear a quiet pin drop and we can also hear a jet engine
And there is a vast difference almost infinite difference in volume level between those two
things
So it’s a very difficult thing to describe
So decibel is how we talk about differences in sound pressure level
Hertz, alright we’ve got Hertz
Hertz is how we measure frequency
So cycles per second is measured in Hertz
The human ear can hear anywhere from 20 Hertz all the way up to 20,000 Hertz
Sometimes 20,000 Hertz is abbreviated to 20 Kilohertz or 20K Hertz
Ohm, Ohm is a unit to measure resistance against current flow
DAW stands for digital audio workstation
EQ stands for equalizer that’s how you can adjust the high end or the treble
The mid or the bass of a specific channel
VU meter and peak program meter
So these are different ways to understand how loud something is
How loud the audio is when it’s inside the console
So we can’t tell how loud it is unless we hear it
But sometime it's nice to be able to tell how loud it is in the electronic circuits
Inside the mixing console
So we have what is called a volume unit meter or VU meter
And you’ll that dial kicking up and down as your vocalist sings or as your guitar player
plays
You’ll see that fluctuating along with the volume changes of that particular channel
Of that particular instrument
And you also have peak program meter now that is measuring transients
So a transient is like a spike in volume level
So that’s measuring the peak of that audio volume level
As it pertains to an audio circuit inside the circuit board
We’ve got this idea of headroom so in analog circuits we have headroom
Now that is the amount of volume you can go above a normal working level
So once you reach unity gain that is typically where the analog signal should be
Right up around unity gain or zero, 0 dB or 0 VU
Once you go above that at some point the circuit will overload
And you’ll be in the red you’ll be clipping
With analog circuits there’s a little bit of leeway we call that leeway headroom
With digital circuits in digital audio there is no headroom
So once you get up to 0 VU if you go zero plus one
You will be clipping and you will be distorting and it does not sound very pretty
Alright MIDI stands for musical instrument digital interface
And that is basically a communication protocol for drum machines, synthesizers, keyboards
And other processing equipment so that they can be in sync and on the same page
And control one another one can be a master one can be a slave that is MIDI
Then we have pad, so a pad is a attenuating device right
So you push the pad and you might have a 5 dB pad a 10 dB pad a 20 dB pad
So if your signal is really hot you will press the pad and automatically the circuit will
adjust
And dump down that signal from wherever it was to 20 dB less 10 dB less
Whatever the pad is assigned to usually it’s a fixed thing
So there’ll be like a 5 dB pad sometimes they are on the microphone
So you might have a pad on the microphone to adjust level if you’re trying to mic
Something very loud you don’t want to overload the circuitry a pad will bring it down
Usually they are push buttons
Alright this video is getting pretty long a lot of terms to cover here
Potentiometer, i think this is going to be the last one in this video
Potentiometer or Pot now this is very similar to fader
But basically it is a control where you can adjust the resistance in a circuit
And a pot is generally a rotary knob so you can turn it from the left and to the right
Whereas a fader you can slide it up and slide it down
But essentially they accomplish the same thing
Alright guys thank you for watching this video
I hope you have found it informative
And please stay tuned for the next one