Help with hooking up my new components please!!

[puremick]

Hi all and thanks to everyone in advance for your help. I play mostly acoustic(some electric) and sing. I had just a Mackie DFX6 and a QSC QX3. I recently traded some stuff for a TC Electronics Gmajor and an Alesis 3630 Compressor. It was easy to hook up with just the 2 pieces as the 2 mains on the DFX6 went to the inputs on the QX3 and the speakers were connected to the outputs on the QX3. Now what I am trying to achieve is to have the compressor hooked up to just one channel of my DFX6 for my mic and the Gmajor hooked up to another single channel on my DFX6 for my guitar. Would anyone know how to explain how to do this?

 

[JTyson]

Hi all and thanks to everyone in advance for your help. I play mostly acoustic(some electric) and sing. I had just a Mackie DFX6 and a QSC QX3. I recently traded some stuff for a TC Electronics Gmajor and an Alesis 3630 Compressor. It was easy to hook up with just the 2 pieces as the 2 mains on the DFX6 went to the inputs on the QX3 and the speakers were connected to the outputs on the QX3. Now what I am trying to achieve is to have the compressor hooked up to just one channel of my DFX6 for my mic and the Gmajor hooked up to another single channel on my DFX6 for my guitar. Would anyone know how to explain how to do this?

Use the insert jacks for the selected channels you want. You'll need a stereo Y cable that has a stereo jack that goes to 2 lines (send/recieve) these lines will go to the G major send/recieve and the compressor send/recieve
Here's a link to the Mackie manual http://www.mackie.com/pdf/dfx_om.pdf
Happy hunting

 

[puremick]

OK...The Y cable helps a little bit but I am still a little puzzled after looking at the back of the components. The gmajor has 2 balanced inputs(1 is mono) and 2 balanced outputs(again, 1 is mono). The Alesis 3630 has Channel A and B and each has an Input, an Output, and another input that says tip for send and ring for return. So I am little confused as to which would be send/return for the Y cable?? Also, what if I wanted to use both channels in the compressor? Another Y cable to my DFX6??

 

[JTyson]

OK...The Y cable helps a little bit but I am still a little puzzled after looking at the back of the components. The gmajor has 2 balanced inputs(1 is mono) and 2 balanced outputs(again, 1 is mono). The Alesis 3630 has Channel A and B and each has an Input, an Output, and another input that says tip for send and ring for return. So I am little confused as to which would be send/return for the Y cable?? Also, what if I wanted to use both channels in the compressor? Another Y cable to my DFX6??

Well, usually the tip is send and the ring return, unless you put a multimeter on the leads its hard to tell which is which, but if you hook it up one way (with the levels all the way down) and bring them up just enough to see if it works, if it does not- switch them and retry
You would be using the mono jacks (send/return) on the TC
You would use either the A or B input/output on the Alesis, and yes, another Y insert cable for the other channel.
As a stereo option you could run the TC in the main loop on the mixer, I think it has a mono aux send and stereo aux return over by your main output jacks, (it actually has 2 aux sends with stereo returns) and run the desired amount of signal from the channel send your guitar is plugged into. This would give you stereo effects from the TC (if that matters)
There are several ways to run this stuff in a mixer, I usually preffered to use a channel as an aux return for whatever effect I wanted, but for keeping this as simple as possible, I would do it the way described
Hope that helps

 

[puremick]

OK. I know it has been a long time since my last post to try and get this rig set up, but sometimes life gets in the way! I have some y cables and I am trying to figure out how to attach the G Major and the both channels of the Alesis Compressor to my Mackie DFX6 if possible. I have attached pics in case someone can look and help me figure this out. Thanks for any help! The back of the G Major has Balanced Inputs-Left(mono) and Right, Balanced Outputs-Left(mono) and Right, digital io(which I know its not, Midi(which I know it's not and External control(which I know its not. So I know the send/return Y cable must go between inputs and outputs and then somewhere to the board so I can hear my acoustic which is input to channel 1 on the DFX6. The Alesis has Channel A and B and both have Output, Side Chain(tip return..send ring), and Input. I would like to each channel for a separate Mic. Thanks again

 

[JTyson]

Your gonna put the stereo end of the Y cable into the insert jack on the channel you want, then plug the red (send) into the mono input of the G Major (left-mono) and put the other plug into the output jack (left-mono) this will give you the GMajor on that channel only.
You just want it on one channel, right?
The insert jack is not on the back in the picture, its on the top in the channel strip next to the XLR input jack
The Alesis will be the same way, pick the channel you want and put the stereo tip on the Y cable to the insert jack on that channel, the red goes to input (on whatever channel you picked) and the black goes to the output of the same channel
For the other channel you do the same thing on that channel
That should give you two channels with compression and 1 with the G major
Have all your levels down before you do any of this so you dont blow something
I may have the Y cable input/output backwards, if it dosent work, turn everything down, swith them and retry
Happy hunting

 

[JTyson]

OK, I just checked one I have here with a meter, its as I thought, red goes to input/black to output

 

[JTyson]

I was looking at the pdf manual, the insert jacks are only on the first few channels, the later ones dont have it, also, they are not on top, they are in the back under the XLR jacks labled "insert"
sorry.. You hook it up the same way though