Double Patching

Sounds great through front-of-house but lousy in foldback... how often do we hear that complaint?

Problem is, that generally, from the console, you only have one set of EQ per channel...  which means that you have a choice: good front-of-house or good in foldback, but not both.  How do you keep the audience and the artists happy?

Double-patching is a useful technique that is simple to do with most digital consoles.  It allows us to patch a single input to multiple faders on the console.

This means that a single channel coming in, is controlled by two (or more) faders - each with their own dynamics, EQ and effects.  It's basically splitting a channel into two. So, from a single input, one fader could control front-of-house, and a second fader could control foldback - and importantly, each fader has its own independent EQ and effects - so foh and stage can each get what they need.

Another application of this is where a single mic is being shared by multiple people (eg an MC and a vocalist), each of which have very different needs.  By double-patching, you have a fader for the MC, and a separate fader for the vocalist sharing that mic.