Rick_Auricchio

Ah, it certainly looked like that from the screen shot. I've usually got the wood stage background, and I guess I never looked at the color of the controller.

Ah, I think I see the confusion. The controller is actually green (the color of its "knob" icon). It doesn't have any background color, so it's transparent. The brown you see is the color from the image of the floor behind the controller.

Your statement made me wonder if the OP is color-blind. I don't intend to insult, but don't certain types of color-blindness render green as beige/brown?

Thanks, Don, that explains it.

It all depends on the line-drivers used in the equipment. Some run up to five volts; if the signal is standard AES/EBU, the specification allows it to run as low as two volts. The higher voltage works better with longer cables, because cable losses have less effect on the signal.

Unfortunately, most standard routers don't have a "wireless client" operating mode.

Sure; virtually any balanced output can drive an unbalanced input. You should connect only the ground (pin 1) and hot (pin 2) of the balanced output to the ground and hot of the unbalanced input. You shouldn't generally allow pin 2 (cold) to short to ground, though most modern balanced outputs are OK with that. If the balanced output is transformer-driven, then you must short pin 3 to ground; otherwise you get weak and distorted sound. But most musical-instrument equipment isn't transformer-balanced. You'd know immediately if you need to ground pin 3---not grounding it won't cause damage, but you'll hear the sound isn't good. Here's the connection diagram, taken from http://www.rane.com/note110.html . You can ignore their suggested wire colors; the important thing is how they're connected. Note that this connection will drop 6dB of gain vs. a balanced connection, because it doesn't use both lines (pin 2 and 3). Just bump gains to compensate.

Use an Airport Express as a wireless client. This mode provides an Ethernet connection at the router end and joins the wireless network with its wireless hardware. Instructions here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201621 Essentially what this mode does is give you wireless capability "outside the box" because the M20d doesn't have it built in. You have M20d --> Ethernet --> Airport Express --> wifi --> router The iPad connects to the wireless router normally, and it can talk to the M20d. Caveat: Some routers have a Guest Wifi Network that indeed can't see the Ethernet LAN but gets to the Internet; this isolation would prevent your scenario from working. If you can't ask someone about this, you have to run a test to see if this is the case. With the Airport Express, run Airport Utility on a computer to configure the Express and have it join the wireless network. If this is a permanent installation, you only need to do this once. If the wireless network changes, you have to do it again.

Most apps connect to web sites or other online servers. The one to control a mixer (M20d, Mackie or Behringer) probably needs to perform low-level network communication, not simply web accesses. This is where things can get different. Not having worked in either IOS or Android apps, I don't know for sure, but the devil is in the details when it comes to software design.

Don is 100% right-on. Line6 would have to create lots of similar (but different) apps and test them all individually. That's a lot of testing since there are so many functions in the mixer and so many different situations to test. They'd still have to eliminate certain tablet models that simply can't work. Then they'd have to handle all the potential customer questions caused by limitations in a particular tablet app---or any weird mixer behavior caused by a bug in one of the apps. Never mind the calls for app updates as each tablet gets new OS updates: "But now it should work---your software guys should try writing the app again!" There are limits to how far a company can go. It isn't like they're selling fifty thousand units a month and banking huge profits to support a big effort. (If this were the US military, then of course they'd spend millions on it.) (Me? I've just been a software engineer since 1973. What do I know?)

What he meant is the grounding of the input connectors. Nothing to do with power.

It's wise to mute when plugging/unplugging devices when phantom power is on, because there will almost always be a pop.

I bought mine from Sweetwater. I live about 200 miles from the nearest Guitar Center, and the few local dealers (still 20+ miles away) don't stock it.

Ah, I tend to not even look at any of the up/down voting stuff on forums. I was wondering if that was what happened...but I couldn't easily find where I might find that score. No harm, no foul.

I took no offense; it's just that we all do things differently. There are times when I, too, have wished that the monitor output levels were stored. But I've made the old "Hit the button while the level is too high" mistake enough times that I know it's far safer if the levels are down. It may take me a moment to remember that I have to raise the monitor levels, but it's safe! And Si, you have a lot more experience with the M20d than I...I'm glad for the endorsement!

For this situation to work, you would have to be sure that no levels changed on the FOH system. So either you have to check all their gain settings, or you simply bring up your main and monitor sends till you get what you need. It seems easier to glance at FOH system (just to see that knobs are in a reasonable place), then adjust as needed on the M20d.

After struggling like you, I came up with the attached diagram. I think it's correct...if not, Don or Arne should chime in. I'm a 30+ year software professional and it still took some time to get my head around the Stagescape design. setups vs scenes.pdf

Channel trim is stored in the Setup, not the Scene.

The return level is global. You set the send level on a per-channel basis---you may want some channels to have more reverb than others. For example, I usually set all the vocal sends the same, but I might set the saxophone channel higher to get more reverb than the vocals. Then I adjust the return level so we have the proper amount of reverb in the overall mix.

This is typical of a subwoofer: it's designed and crossed-over to reproduce only the lowest frequencies.

Back when I used to write articles for Recording and Bass Player magazines (mid-late 90s), I wrote a column on just this point. I never submitted it for publication, but I'll see if I can dig it up.

Yeah, this isn't the place for Variax questions/ideas/answers. But you've submitted to ideascale.

We do this at one venue. They have a Carvin "box mixer" already set up, driving a power amp for house mains and monitor wedges. They leave a cable loose from the amp for monitors. As Don said, I patch the M20d main out (left only; we run mono) to one line-input channel of the Carvin, and our Mon-B send to another. On the Carvin I dial one of those channels to house mains, the other to house monitor output. EQ gets set to neutral with FX off. Thus we're just running our two "line signals" through their house system, without touching their power-amp connections. We plug in our floor wedge and away we go. I've attached a schematic. (Ritchie, my guitarist, uses the passive floor wedge; the powered monitors for Bob and I are driven directly by the M20d.)

Heh heh...I've been watching too many crime stories on TV, so my first thought was to record people in compromising situations---then offer the recording to them for a fee.

Any hiccup of power can easily cause trouble with digital devices. I've seen computers just get wonky (sometimes hours later) after a very quick power flicker. I'm going to use a small Tripp-Lite UPS on my M20d from now on just for good measure. In March, we'll play a generator-powered gig at a large winery nearby. For that I'll add the Furman AR-117 regulator to run the entire band. A left-over from my studio, the unit provides a steady 117VAC with 90-140v input. With that and the UPS on the M20d we should be fine. (I don't lug that 11-pound Furman unit to non-generator gigs; the UPS is fine for locations powered by the usual AC mains.) (As Don said, the M20d accepts 90-240VAC, but its power supply isn't immune to sudden dips below 90v, so the UPS and/or regulator aren't a bad idea.) I'm sure they use a large generator since this winery runs similar events a few times a year, and they've done so successfully for several years. But why take chances?