How Do You Tune a Mixer, Speakers and Amplifier to Each Other?

The Bax Music Helpdesk gets asked a lot of questions about everything and anything, and some them can be pretty nuts, but one of the most common questions is how to tune up a mixer, a set of speakers and an amplifier so they all work in harmony with each other and, above all, you give you stonking good sound. To help all you music-devotees get more out of your system, our canny experts explain everything in one neat blog.

Welcome to our ten-step instruction book for calibrating your mixer to your speakers and your amplifier. After this quick-fire course, you will know exactly how it all works!

Step 1

Turn all of the gain knobs on your amplifier all the way down to ‘0’.

Step 2

Make sure you’ve got a clear signal running through one channel of your mixer. It doesn’t matter what you’ve got going through it, whether it’s an mp3 player, a laptop or a turntable. Connect it up and set the input signal so that it’s peaking at 0dB. You can set the input signal by twisting the gain knob of the corresponding channel. Make a note of the approximate gain setting you need to get it to sit at 0dB.

Step 3

Push the fader of the corresponding channel all the way up.

Step 4

Push the master fader of your mixer all the way up.

Step 5

Check that the master of your mixer is outputting at 0dB.

Step 6

Turn the gain knob of the mixer channel your source is connected to up a little bit, until the channel and the master of your mixer starts peaking at +3dB.

Step 7

Keep an eye on the master gain indicators to check that the mixer isn’t overdriving and peaking into the red or yellow.

Step 8

Now, turn up the gain on your amplifier. Listen closely to hear how things are sounding and check that the Clip LED indicator of your amplifier isn’t lighting up.

Step 9

If your speakers are distorting or the Clip LED indicators of your speakers are lighting up, then turn the gain knob of your amplifier down a little bit until you reach the maximum level without any distortion of lit Clip LEDs.

Step 10

Now, turn down the mixer channel a little bit, until everything is peaking at 0dB again.

Simple, right? The biggest benefit of following these steps is that your system will be able to handle any light any peaks without overdriving and possibly damaging your speakers and amplifier. We hope everything worked out! Enjoy!