The first scenario: You have a vocal session, you set up 4 Mics and get 4 Mic Preamps ready to go. The vocalist sings into each mic, and one is chosen, then a pre is chosen that complements the singer and mic. Different people have different ways of doing this but it often involves 4 console channels, an assistant and fast patching, interleaved with mutes and phantom power switches.
The second scenario: A bass DI and a bass mic is setup on the cabinet, bring them both up and they sound kind of out-of-phase, flip the phase of one channel and it is still not quite right. You wish the phase button were a knob.
The third scenario: You have set up a pristine vocal chain and then find that you want to ride the vocal level to tape as it is being recorded – but you dread messing up that chain by feeding it through all the electronics in your console channel just to score use of a fader.
The back panel has 4 Mic inputs, 4 Mic level sends to Mic Preamps, 4 Mic Preamp returns plus one Monitor output. In situations where the outputs of all 4 preamps are required it is possible to use “Y” cables with one set going to a console for further track routing or mixing. The Utility box does patch each of the 4 mics to each of the 4 preamps in “Matrix Mode”.
