To bypass, or not to bypass

Imagine an analog summer (16ch, locked stereo) and monitor control, with a balanced master insert in a rack unit, basically a scaled back master section I guess. The intended environment is a small ITB based studio, most likely with 16 DA outputs max. I am having trouble choosing what kind of bypass system to use for the summer. Which of these options would you choose?

A. A straight bypass. When activated, inputs 1 + 2 are fed to the start of the monitor controller, and cut from the summing amp. The summing amp can still be used independently, with output taken from the master send, however the summer now only has 14 channels.

B. A combined bypass. When activated, inputs 1 + 2 are again fed to the start of the monitor controller, however there are left connected to the summing amp (appropriately buffered). The summing amp can again still be used independently of the monitor control and with 16 channels, only with the caveat that the monitor control and channel 1 + 2 of the summing amp will be fed from the same source.

C. No bypass. If you want to use the monitor controller independently, you can feed it from the master return, and take the summing amp from the  master send. This option is the most flexible, however also most inconvenient for the user, as it requires patching the different signals in and out.

Discussions welcome.

Cheers
Elliott

What do you mean with bypass?
It's 16ch in, 2ch out. It's confusing to call this bypass.

Or do you mean master insert bypass?

Or do you want a way to feed the da output on 2 tracks straight to the monitor controller?

For the latter, I would use a seperate input, just like a cd or dat input on a console. Decide which output you want by adapting your studio wiring, who knows one day you get a 2ch ad/da for recording your mixes... You probably have a few inputs on a switch already, just reserve one for 2 track...

Arno said:

What do you mean with bypass?
It's 16ch in, 2ch out. It's confusing to call this bypass.

Or do you mean master insert bypass?

Or do you want a way to feed the da output on 2 tracks straight to the monitor controller?

Click to expand...

Yeah, it's confusing...