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5PraSn1 – Sound Practical - Lecture 17

Lecture notes for use by lecturer
NOT to be given to students
Structure: 25 Minutes theory lecture and 25 Minutes tutorial

Content:
- (Th) Phantom power
- (Tut) Practice phantom power
Resources:
- Standard sound practical venue with complete sound towers
- Sound towers should be wired up, compressors connected to the Mix Inserts –
on the consoles that has a mix insert, mix out to graphic to amp
- Compressors set to hard limiting to protect speakers
- Graphic EQ – following frequencies pulled down completely: 20, 25, 31.5, 40,
50, 63, 80, 16000, 20000 – this is to prevent the sending of frequencies to the
little speakers which the speakers cannot handle
- Amplifier volume knobs at 12 o’clock which will allow the students to actually use
some gain during the exercises

- A couple of condenser microphones and DI’s have been booked for this week’s
lectures.

Goals:
- The students should have an understanding on the basics of phantom power,
when to use phantom power, and more importantly, how to use phantom power
safely.
- Students should by now know the names of the features on the mono channel
- Demonstrate how to correctly get a condenser mic or DI to work on the various
mixing consoles in the venue through various routing paths.

Quick pop-quiz

Let the students write a quick pop-quiz on G1v1 (including routing). They need to realize
the importance of memorizing G1v1 and to live by them. One mistake means they should
redo the steps.

5PraSn1 – Lecture 17
© - Academy of Sound Engineering – 2017
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Phantom Power

In this hour this week we need to teach the learners phantom power on the mixing desk.

- Phantom power gives a fixed DC voltage to condenser microphones through the

mic cable in order to charge the plates of the microphone.
- Phantom power will always ONLY be available on microphone inputs and never
the line inputs.
- Some mixers would have a phantom power switch per channel – such as the
Spirit live 4 mixer.
- Due to the cost implication to have a switch per channel, sometimes for smaller
and cheaper mixers they would give one global phantom power switch – one
switch to activate or de-activate phantom power on all the channels at once.
- A few rules regarding phantom power:
o You can only connect or disconnect a microphone or instrument if
the phantom power is switched off.
o You can only switch the phantom power on or off if the desk is
neutralized. If the desk has a phantom power switch per channel,
then only the channel that you want to switch the phantom on or off
need to be neutralized. If the desk has one global switch (such as
the InterM mixers) – ALL the channels must be neutralized before
you can switch the phantom on or off.
o Phantom power off is regarded as the LAST step in the neutralizing
– typically the last button to take out at the top of the channel
- Since we work on mixers where some of them have a global phantom power
switch – and we want to use condenser microphones, from now on all the
channels must be neutralized before we can switch the phantom on or off.
- The phantom power switch on the InterM mixer is close to the mixer main on or
off switch. There is also an LED indicating that the phantom power is on or off.
- Phantom power should now also be checked every time we neutralize the desk.
- When we want to get a condenser mic to work, the procedure would now be:
o Neutralize the desk (not only the one channel anymore)
o Connect mic or instrument
o Switch on the phantom power if needed
o Routing and rest of G1v1
- Since we have a global switch on some of the mixers, we now have to first
connect all the microphones BEFORE we can switch on the phantom power.
- Each time a student wants to get a channel to work they must now also point out
whether they decide to use phantom power or not, and also activate it if
necessary.
- Let the students get a cheap condenser microphone (or DI) to work

Prescribed Reading

Yamaha Sound Rienforcement Handbook

Section 4 Dynamic Range
4.2.1 A definition
4.2.2 Why Headroom is important

5PraSn1 – Lecture 17
© - Academy of Sound Engineering – 2017
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Tutorial tasks:

With the students, do a survey on all the mixers in the venue and see which of the mixers
have a global phantom power switch, and which mixers has phantom power per individual
channel.

Make sure you use the 3 tracks given with Click on the Left and Audio on the right

(Make use of the whiteboard in ER1 to put these jobs up)

The following JOBS need to be practiced:

Each job requires them to execute the full George 1v1, in the correct order. They also
have to neutralize ALL the channels due to the global phantom power switches.

Job 1:
Route mic to both speakers through group 2
Route Playback Device to both speakers in stereo through groups 3 & 4

Job 2:
Route the mic to the right speaker through group 3
Route the Playback Device to both speakers in stereo through groups 1 & 2

Job 3:
Route the mic to both speakers
Route the Left of the Playback Device to both speakers through group 1
Route the Right of the Playback Device to the Left speaker through group 4

Job 4:
Route the mic to the Left speaker through group 2
Route the Left of the Playback Device to both speakers through groups 3 & 4
Route the Right of the Playback Device to the right speaker through group 1

You are welcome to give more Jobs and more routing options.

5PraSn1 – Lecture 17
© - Academy of Sound Engineering – 2017