Stereo and Mono Channels

[RichardJames]

Are stereo channels considered single channels on a mixing board or is each stereo channel equal to 2 mono channels?
In other words, if a mixer has 40 channels total with 4 of the channels stereo would it be a 36 x 4 or a 32 x 4?

[Ted]

A stereo channel counts as two mono channels, so typically a 40-channel board with four stereo channels would have 32 mono channels. The second number is the number of busses...so if that 40-channel mixer had four busses it would be a 40x4 mixer (occasionally you'll see it listed as 40x4x2, meaning 40 input channels to four busses plus the stereo bus), or if it has eight busses it would be 40x8. Usually you'll have to look a little deeper to figure out how many of the input channels are stereo.

-Ted

[RichardJames]

I thought the same thing, but it seems that different companies have different ways of expressing how many channels are total, stereo, mono and busses. I am trying to sort through some inventory and I hoped there would be a standard for this, but unfortunately there only seems to be some common expressions in the specs. I guess I'll have to do this the hard way.

Thanks for the input though.


Richard