If you're playing live on stage, being able to hear what you're doing and what your bandmates are playing is essential. So you can not only monitor the stage sound but control it, you could set up a personal mixer, plug in some live in-ear headphones and stop relying on the sound engineer.
Personal Mixing System Options
Personal mixers can come in a number of different shapes and sizes. The most simple models will have a single input, a volume control knob and a headphone output for plugging in gear like a set of in-ear monitors. Here, you can just connect one of the AUX Sends of the main desk (which the sound engineer can sort out for you) to the input of your personal mixer, adjust the volume and you're done. More extensive models can have as many as sixteen channels so you can balance the mix of instruments to complete your own personal monitor mix and bypass the sound engineer altogether.
Analogue or Digital Monitor Mixers?
Some personal mixers will feature digital connection ports. A really popular example is the Behringer Powerplay system which comes fitted with Ultranet ports, so instead of hooking it up with standard jack leads or XLR cables, you hook it up to (e.g.) Ultranet equipment using a network cable. This way, you can connect multiple channels up to a mixer using just one cable. Dante is a similar kind of network technology that allows users to quickly set up their mixer to control multiple channels. The disadvantage of this is that the rest of your digital gear needs to run on the same tech, which is a limitation that analogue mixers just don't have. See our full range of mixing desks.
