How to Set Up Your Hired Mixer, Amp and Speakers

Here is a guide on how to correctly set up your hired audio equipment. This process is called "gain staging." Its goal is to set the optimal level for each piece of equipment in the chain (mixer, amplifier, speakers) to give you the loudest, cleanest sound possible, without damaging the gear.

Follow these steps before your event starts, ideally during your soundcheck.

1. Start Safe: Before turning anything on, find the main volume/level knobs on your amplifier(s) and turn them all the way down to zero.
2. Get a Test Signal: Connect your music source (like a laptop, phone, or DJ controller) to a channel on the mixer. Play a song that is typical of the volume and style you'll be using for your event.
3. Set Your Input Level (Gain): On the mixer channel your music is plugged into, find the 'Gain' or 'Trim' knob (usually at the very top). While your music plays, turn this knob up. Watch the small LED meter on that channel.
   • You want the light to be consistently in the green and just "kissing" or flickering yellow on the loudest parts of the song.
   • If it hits the red 'Peak' or 'Clip' light, turn it down immediately. Red is bad and will cause distortion.
4. Set Your Faders:
   • Push the vertical volume fader for that channel up to the line marked '0' (this is often called 'Unity' or 'U').
   • Push the main 'Master' or 'Main Mix' fader up to the '0' ('Unity'/'U') mark as well.
5. Check Your Master Output: Look at the main stereo LED meter on the mixer. With your music playing, it should now also be bouncing around the '0' level, just like your channel. If it's hitting the red, turn the channel 'Gain' (from step 3) down slightly until it's not.
6. Find the System's Safe Maximum: Now, go to your amplifier(s). Slowly begin to turn up the volume knobs.
7. Watch and Listen for Warnings: Keep turning the amp volume up until one of two things happens:
   • You hear the sound from the speakers start to distort (get fuzzy, crackly, or "break up").
   • You see a 'Clip' or 'Limit' light (usually red or amber) flicker on the amplifier itself or on your active speakers.
8. Set the Limit: The instant you hear distortion or see a clip light, turn the amplifier volume down just a fraction, until the distortion stops and the light no longer flashes.
9. You're Set! Leave the amplifier knobs at this position. This is now your system's maximum safe volume.
10. Control from the Mixer: Go back to the mixer and pull the 'Master' fader all the way down.

For the rest of your event, you will control the overall volume only using the mixer's 'Master' fader and individual channel faders.

You've successfully set up the system so that you can push the master fader right up to the '0' mark for full, clear volume, knowing you won't be damaging the hired equipment or distorting the sound.

Enjoy your event!