Hi all
Looking at the posts regarding Listen Mics, I have the following comments to make based on what they were originally intended for and my experience the other side of the glass (ie playing drums). Forgive me if some of my facts are wrong but this was the original idea with having Listen Mic's on the SSL.
Apart from having various instruments mic'd up in a studio or booth, the listen mics were provided so that musicians could talk back to the Control Room to get comments from the engineer and producer etc. Then, the engineer in the CR (Control Room) would TB (Talk Back) via the mic on the 651 or the Producer via the 621 Producers Panel so that the musicians could hear what the CR people were saying via their headphone cue feeds.
The Listen mics were separate to the close mic'd instrument mics and originally intended to just hang down from the ceiling or be put on a separate mic stand in the same room. A musician shouted out, got heard on a Listen Mic and the CR people heard it and responded back with the TB (Talk Back) mic on the SSL. Actually, I think the correct phrasing for all of this is talkback (TB or in this case, Listen mics) for musicians communicating TO the CR and return talkback (RTB) for the CR people communicating BACK to the studio musicians. Therefore, the LM's (Listen Mics) were just originally included in the SSL design as a communication function from the studio areas TO the CR.
From memory, when you go into record mode on the SSL, the LM's get muted in the CR monitors (just minis or main LS as well ... I don't know?) and are NEVER routed to any cues (pre fader) or aux (echo) sends (post fader). There was no need for this, as to route them to pre-fader cues only meant that the musicians would hear themselves back in the headphones talking to the CR (what's the point and it would possibly provide feedback? ... see point below regarding plugging them into a channel).
I think the compressor was originally meant to reduce the signal from the LM's into the CR monitors and only later on became useful for other recording purposes ... read the next sentence ...!
Later on, some studios used Listen Mics as an ambient mic source and, as they go through the SSL 651 compressor (I think I'm right with this), the sound could then be routed, via patchcords, to another input channel and then go to tape to capture a different and more live sound which people liked and used.
As the original design went, the LM's go just to the CR and can be heard on monitors there UNTIL the record button is pressed. If you want to route them somewhere else and record their sounds, you need to patchcord them into a channel but beware that the channel you plug them into may route that signal back to the pre fader aux feeds (headphones) or the post fader echo sends so turn those pots down (especially the pre-fader one to stop feedback). If the 651 can send LM's to tape (as was suggested on an earlier post by Sintech), this presumably was so that the musician comments could be used as a guide for overdubs later on but, I don't really know and haven't looked at a 651 in detail for a while to suss it out.
Plugging the LM's into a channel which could potentially route them to post fader echo feeds may ALSO result in them coming back into the musician's headphones as you may have some of your four stereo echo unit returns coming back into the 651 and on there, you may have some pots turned up to route the echo returns to cue (pre-fader headphone) feeds as well. So beware of routing the signal source back to the original source and having unwanted feedback or bursting eardrums!
Hope this is accurate and makes sense. Yet again, another long post from me but I only did it to gain a higher Karma score in a pointless quest to try and catch up with Sintech who is light years ahead (only kidding as he deserves it, bless him!).
Regards from Jim Lassen (
www.profcon.co.uk). Also on
FACEBOOKPS: Loads of DL's in stock if you need any plus I need to get rid of all my patchbays and SSL panels soon due to moving house.
