If you’ve wondered what those Aux channels mean on your mixer, I will explain.  That way, should you ever get the ear of a seasoned electronic veteran… like The Juan MacLean, for example…. you can ask them more insightful questions, and won’t need to spend your car ride home doing a *facepalm loop!

The aux dials on your mixer represent an entirely different, or auxiliary mix.  Yes, you can handle effects with them, but for me their value was much simpler.  Let’s say for example you are sending some tracks from a device, and want to include a rhythm track that only the drummer can hear.  In that case, you would send the mix via one quarter-inch jack from your device or sound card into a channel on the mixer.  Then, turn down the master volume of the mixer channel- but turn up the aux channel.   Connect the aux channel’s out to a headphone amp, and presto- you’ve got a click track only the drummer can hear!  Turn up the other aux tracks on input channels to hear the other elements in the mix.

This is such a basic premise, I debated making a blog post about it… but I have to believe there is at least one other person on the planet who doesn’t understand what the aux channels will do.  Wherever you are… hope this helps!