If you’ve turned the gain down all the way and the meter is still in the red (or you’re hearing distortion), it’s time to employ the pad. More importantly, listen to the signal to make sure that you don’t hear any distortion. Use the technique for setting input level described in the previously mentioned Tools of the Trade post, and see if you can get the meter to read a good level. That’s because, if you’re dealing with a weak signal and the pad is on, you’ll need to bring the gain way up, and that can add noise. That said, it’s important that you always first try to set proper level with the pad switched off. It’s not unusual to use pads on kick, snare and tom microphones, as well as on mics placed right up against the grille of large guitar stacks. That’s where a pad comes in: It prevents the signal from overloading the mic preamp. You may be thinking “Well, that’s why there’s a gain control I can simply turn down the gain.” However, even with the gain all the way down you may still see the peak light flashing and hear distortion. That combination can create a signal so strong that it overloads the mic preamp in the mixer. The reason you’d want to attenuate a signal coming from a microphone is simple: Some sources from the stage - for example, kick drum - are very loud! Making matters worse, kick drum mics are usually placed right in front of, or even inside, the drum. Typically located near the microphone input, it attenuates (reduces) the signal from a microphone before it reaches the mic preamp circuitry inside the mixer: Pad switch. That’s where a pad can come to the rescue.Ī pad is a switch found on the input channels of many mixers, including all Yamaha MG and MGP Series models. As we saw in a previous Tools of the Trade blog post about gain staging, using the correct inputs and setting proper levels is a big help, but what happens when you’ve done all that and still hear distortion? An important part of creating a good live sound mix is avoiding distortion, and that usually starts with the input to your mixer.

Music mixing pad