An Overview of Field Mixers, Preamps, and Accessories

If you're recording audio outside the confines of a studio environment, a field mixer will help ensure high-quality sound. There is a wide variety of solutions available, so read more to find out what best suits your needs.

What's a Field Mixer?

Portable field mixers are battery-powered devices that let you mix signals from multiple microphones. The mix goes to a single audio output. A mixer also allows you to adjust the signal, which is useful even when working with a single microphone. Many mixers let you control the gain and level of each available input. Some provide filtering, panning, fading, and other controls, all of which give you more control over the audio feed, to provide clear, perfect sound on the go.

What Are Audio Preamplifiers?

Audio preamplifiers boost the signal of your microphones to line-level to ensure they have ample gain. Field mixers will have a built-in preamp, but the quality of that preamp varies from model to model. If your mixer's preamp is insufficient for your needs, you could add a dedicated preamp to your setup.

Other Field Recording Accessories

If you're looking for a simple mixing solution, camcorder XLR adapters allow you to connect microphones to your camera and mix them. Field mixer cases and bags make carrying your portable audio mixer and accessories more manageable, and help to keep them safe. Field audio press boxes allow you to split a signal from one microphone input into multiple outputs if you need to share an audio feed with multiple devices.

Make sure you have the appropriate cables and audio adapters so that you can connect all your gear. Harnesses free up your hands to work audio controls. Microphones, studio monitor headphones, and more accessories for field audio mixers are available to complete your recording setup.

There's a variety of field mixers and accessories available at B&H Photo and Video to ensure that your audio will sound its best, no matter where you go.