Am I thick or is something faulty?

[Alec 'Aleb' Mills]

I recently bought a mixer off ebay, a Yamaha MG124c.

Is it normal that none of the sliders affect the signal in any way?
Or are they there purely for the XLR & jack stereo outs to go into power amp/powered speakers?

I can still control the channel volume vai the gain knob.

Nothing in the manual says anything about it. Is this the norm or is there something wrong?

If anyone can help, it'd be much appreciated! I don't want a faulty item!

Edited June 13, 2012 by Alec 'Aleb' Mills

[Truckstop]

Sliders are usually a volume control assigned to a particular input.

Ie, 8 inputs = 8 sliders

So, if you have 8 drum mics for example, you assign each mic to one input and you control the volume of each mic in order to achieve a good mix for whatever purpose you're using it for (recording, FOH etc).

If however, you already know all of this and I'm being horribly condescending (sorry!) and the sliders aren't controlling the volume of that input, then I'd suggest something is wrong!

Truckstop

[Alec 'Aleb' Mills]

Haha, its ok. Cheers though, Truckstop. It seems to be the signal just completely missing out the faders altogether.

[paul_5]

Is there a switch anywhere that says pre/post - it may be that you're telling the mixer to bypass the faders i.e. selected output is PRE fade - faders appear not to work, or POST fade - faders do the do.

Sorry if that sounds a bit condescending but it's the only thing I can think of and I'm not familiar with this particular desk.

Just had a look at the manual - check your PFL (pre-fade listen) buttons.

Edited June 13, 2012 by paul_5

[Alec 'Aleb' Mills]

At the moment, there is only a signal coming through when the pre-fader switch is engaged, regardless of whether I'm listening through headphones or recording to my mac.

Edited June 13, 2012 by Alec 'Aleb' Mills

[Ed_S]

If you're only getting sound with PFL engaged, are you sure that the channel is 'on' (which I always find a little odd on the MG series when I'm expecting a 'mute' button instead) and that it's assigned to what you're monitoring (no point monitoring the sub-group if your channel is assigned to the main stereo mix).

[Alec 'Aleb' Mills]

well it doesn't seem to make a difference whether the channel is 'on' or not.

Could you possibly take me through which buttons should be 'down' for the signal to not bypass the faders?
The owners manual is of no help, it appears.

[Ed_S]

I'm out of the house and on my phone at present so this is from memory, but chan gain knob up, chan 'on', white chan fader up, red ST (or similar) button near chan fader pressed in, red master fader up, monitoring set to stereo mix (button out, iirc) and monitoring level knob up ...should give noise through headphones that can be controlled using the white chan fader. Of course, PFL shouldn't be engaged or it works anyway :-)

...I'll have a look at a picture of the desk when I get home to make sure I've not missed anything!

[Alec 'Aleb' Mills]

Thankyou so much, Ed you're a star!

I had a go with what you suggested and still the signal ignores the faders. D=

[cheddatom]

Are you deffinitely monitoring the main stereo outputs of the mixer?

[Monckyman]

Does sound like a routing error.
As Tom says, check you are properly connected to the stereo AMP outs,(XLR and Jack options in the box in top right of desk) not the MONITOR SPEAKER outputs.(Jack only)
If you have incorrectly taken the signal from the control room outputs, you will only get a signal when the PFL button is depressed.And as the name of the button suggests, this signal will be take PRE fader,so the position of the fader is irrelevant.
This function is designed to let you monitor whatever signal you want by routing that signal to that output and the headphones,without affecting the main mix which should be coming from the AMP OUT
Then make sure your Channel is actually routed somewhere, ie the ST (Stereo) outs or one of the subgroups, (1-2) and ensure the Subgroup then goes to ST
Yamaha Chan ON switches still confuse everyone inc me. Why don`t they use a Mute like the rest?
The pre/post fade thing shouldn`t be an issue, that`s really only for telling your aux/fx sends where to be in the signal path.
On this desk you have one Aux permanently fixed to POST FADE for your FX send, so that when you turn your vox up or down for instance, the amount of reverb sent to the aux goes up or down relative to it.
The other aux can be sent to an external reverb delay etc, OR it can be switched PRE fade, to send a mix to a powered monitor which will be completely independent of your stereo mix.
Your Channel faders cant be pre fader, because they ARE the faders.
Good luck.

Edited June 14, 2012 by Monckyman

[Alec 'Aleb' Mills]

It is entirely possible I'm being a total muppet!

But thatnks Monckyman, I've read through your post and understand it, just need to wait for some RCA - jack converters to arrive so I can try thestereo outs.
On another note, does this mean that the faders shouldn't affect the volume in the rec out?

[cheddatom]

Is the rec out just a stereo output? If so it's probably for outputting a full mix, and so should be after the faders - they should have an effect.

It may have direct outputs or record outputs on each channel, which would be pre fader and not effected by the faders.