How does the group work on the Behringer X2442USB?

Question

My Behringer X2442USB has a little panel on the left that has the follow

[Button]   [Button]   [Button]   [Button]
  LEFT       LEFT       LEFT       LEFT

[Button]   [Button]   [Button]   [Button]
 RIGHT      RIGHT      RIGHT      RIGHT

   1          2          3          4
   5          6          7          8


------     ------     ------     ------
  |          |          |          |   
  |          |          |          |   
SLIDER     SLIDER     SLIDER     SLIDER
  |          |          |          |   
  |          |          |          |   
------     ------     ------     ------

I don't really understand how to use this. What is 5-6 and 7-8? My Mixer doesn't even have those. All it has is 3 buttons on each channel: 1-2, 3-4, MAIN

Answer 1

I think you mean that those buttons are on the right side of the mixer, just before the main mix output faders. The big clue is that underneath them is the word SUBGROUPS. Subgroups are a useful intermediate step between the channel faders and the main mix.

The signal flow is as follows. Each channel fader can be assigned to submix 1-2, submix 3-4, or the main outputs (with the 1-2, 3-4, and MAIN buttons respectively, as you noted). These are known as busses. Each bus contains the sum of all channels assigned to it. This is useful in many cases. For instance, you might assign six channels of drums to submix 1-2, so you can control their overall volume together, with the submix fader. Then you might have four more channels, this time of guitar, assigned to submix 3-4. And so on.

Normally you would have both buttons above the subgroups fader depressed, so that the sound in that sub bus is sent in stereo to the main outs. But there are other cases where you might not want this sound in the main mix, for example when setting up some complex auxiliary routing. It's nice to have the option of taking the sound of that sub out of the main mix. But in any case it is still available on the back panel; at the SUB OUTPUTS jacks.

The confusing part is that each sub channel has two identical outputs on the back. The output of channel 1 can also be on channel 5. I don't see the point, myself.

Answer 2

Check your mixer's back panel. I bet there are 8 sub outputs and not just 4. In this case, what's probably going on is that each sub signal is routed into a couple of outputs.

sub1->sub5
sub2->sub6
sub3->sub7
sub4->sub8

For you this is just and additional versatility. You can use outputs to plug in 2 more stage monitors, recording equipment, etc..

Answer 3

As 'escalation 746' mentioned at the end of his answer and after checking the mixer's manual it states that the 'sub outputs' 5-8, are wired in parallel to sub outputs 1-4.

Basically meaning that sub group 5 mirrors sub group 1, 6 mirrors 2, 7 mirrors 3, 8 mirrors 4.

Hope this helps to confirm

Answer 4

Just trying to understand this, and it seems to me that if you pan e.g. channel/mic 1 hard left and channel/mic 2 hard right, and route both to sub mix 1-2, then you should be able to take the output of channel 1 from sub-out "1" on the rear, and channel 2 from sub-out "5" on the rear. I could be mistaken about this, but I think this is how it's supposed to work, which of course gives LOADS of different routing options.