You can also send a stereo submix of signals to external devices by
sending them out on a linked pair of Flex Busses. You would do this, for
example, when:
• you want to combine a group of drum mics into a single stereo
image to be recorded on two tracks of a multitrack recorder. This
would be the case if you wanted to mix your cymbal and tom mics
into a pair of drum kit overhead tracks. You can also use this
technique when recording groups of singers, horn or string players,
percussionists and so on.
• you want to create a stereo monitor mix for your performers.
• you wanted to send multiple signals to an external effect processor
with true stereo inputs.
Here’s how to do this using Flex Busses 1 and 2:
1. Press FADER UTILITY.
2. Press F1 [CHANNEL LINK].
3. Press PAGE DOWN twice to display the FLEX BUS channel-linking
page.
4. Press F1 [LINK]—Flex Busses 1 and 2 are now linked as a single
stereo entity. You can link any odd/even pair of Flex Busses.
Let’s route the two Flex Busses to ASSIGNABLE OUTs 4 and 5.
5. Press FLEX BUS MASTER 1-12.
6. Hold down Flex Bus Channel 1’s CH EDIT button and press MULTI
OUT.
Note that the round FLEX BUS 1 and 2 buttons are both now lit.
We can see on this screen that Flex Bus 1 is already set to EXT
and Multi Out 20 from our last example. All we need to do to view
the same screen for Flex Bus 2 is to press its CH EDIT button.
7. Press Flex Bus Channel 2’s CH EDIT button. We can see that Flex
Bus 2 is also set to EXT—when we linked the two Flex Busses, Flex
Bus 2’s BUS MODE was reset to EXT to match Flex Bus 1’s setting.
However, Flex Bus 2 is still routed to Multi Out 18, and we want to
send it to Multi Out 21 so that it goes to ASSIGNABLE OUT 5.
8. Turn V3 to select Multi Out 18, and press F3 [SET] to de-activate
the connection.
9. Turn V3 to select Multi Out 21 and press F3 [SET] to activate this
connection. Flex Bus 2 is now routed to ASSIGNABLE OUT 5.
Let’s see how we’re going to listen to the two Flex Busses.
10. Press SOURCE SELECT. When we last visited this page, we
selected FBUS 1. Since Flex Bus 1 is now linked to Flex Bus 2, the
VM-7000 offers us FBUS 1/2 as an option. Since it’s already
selected, there’s nothing we need to do here. We’re already listening
to Flex Bus 1 and 2.
11. Press F6 [EXIT].
12. Press INPUT CH 1-24.
The display now shows us our sends to Flex Bus 1. Since Flex
Busses 1 and 2 are linked, any signal we send to Flex Bus 1 will be
sent equally to Flex Bus 2. As we’ve done before, we could raise
one of our two faders to send its signal to the two Flex Busses.
However, we also want to be able to pan each signal between the
two Flex Busses. There’s an easier place to do both things.
13. Hold down Input Channel 1’s CH EDIT button and press FLEX BUS
1-6. When the following display appears, let go of both buttons.
14. This screen lets us use the V knobs to set both the level and
panning of the signals we’re sending to Flex Busses 1 and 2.
15. Turn V1 [SEND LEVEL] to send the desired amount of Input
Channel 1’s signal into the Flex Bus 1/2 pair—set it to 100 for now.
Beneath the PAN parameter next to SEND LEVEL, you can see that
Channel 1’s SLAVE parameter is activated. When slaving is turned
on, a channel’s panning to linked Flex Busses automatically mimics
its panning in the main mix. Since we want to control Channel 1’s
panning to Flex Bus 1 and 2 independent of its position in the main
mix, we’ll de-activate SLAVE.
16. Press F2 [SLAVE] to turn slaving off.
17. Turn V2 [PAN] counter-clockwise to pan Input Channel 1’s signal all
the way to the left.
18. Press Input Channel 2’s CH EDIT button—the screen changes to
show you the same parameters as they apply to Input Channel 2.
19. Press F2 [SLAVE] to de-activate slaving. Turn V1 [SEND LEVEL] to
set Input Channel 2’s level to 100 and turn V2 [PAN] to pan it all the
way to the right.
20. Make some noise and listen to your completed stereo Flex Bus mix.
Before proceeding:
1. Press FLEX BUS 1 and bring down the faders for Input Channels 1
and 2 to turn off their sends to Flex Busses 1 and 2.
2. Press FLEX BUS MASTER 1-12. While holding down Flex Bus
Channel 1’s CH EDIT button, press MULTI OUT. Cursor down and
use V2 [BUS MODE] and F2 [SET] to set BUS MODE to INT—since
Flex Busses 1 and 2 are linked, this will set them both to INT.
3. Press FADER UTILITY and F1 [CHANNEL LINK]. Press PAGE
DOWN twice and press F1 [LINK] to unlink Flex Busses 1 and 2.
4. Press SOURCE SELECT, choose MAIN and press F6 [EXIT].