Basic question about mixers and the Iridium

[keevohn]

Hello! I use a Strymon Iridium as a headphone amp. Hoping to find a low cost, simple solution for mixing external audio into my headphones for practice. I believe I either need a mixer or an interface to make this happen. Not really interested in recording anything at this point.

Should I be looking at mixers or interfaces? How many channels?

Would something like this work? https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/AX1Mixer--saramonic-ax1-dual-channel-passive-mini-mixer

Thanks in advance for any input. For some reason, I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the options.

 

[Erik S]

When I'm too lazy to set up something more complicated, I end up with double headphones on.

Play-along tune in earbuds, guitar in over-ear headphones over the earbuds. I'm not proud of it, but it works.

Mixers are awesome to have around though.

These look pretty cool if you're interested in doing USB things:

https://reverb.com/item/25792821-soundcraft-notepad-5-channel-podcast-mixer-podcasting-interface-w-usb-for-mac-pc

I had one of these on my pedal board for a while because I found one for 5 bucks:

https://reverb.com/item/93165696-behringer-eurorack-ub1002-10-input-2-bus-mic-line-mixer-2000s-silver

I think if you're looking at small mixers you'd want minimum 4 channels and a headphone out.

Two inputs for iridium left and right, two more for a stereo practice track, plug your headphones into the mixer.

 

[phi1]

If you mix before the iridium, then the cab sim (most importantly) as well as amp sim and reverb will be on your external audio. So, better to take the output of the iridium into a mixer.

I've built both of these and they work great. Caveat is for the mixer you probably need to split the L/R from your external audio into 2 mono 1/4" plugs. This will work but it's quite a lot of setup. You could easily build them together in one enclosure.

pedalpcb 3 channel MIXER

3-Channel Mixer - PedalPCB.com

Audio Mixer

www.pedalpcb.com

+
pedalpcb headphone amp.

Headphone Amplifier - PedalPCB.com

Headphone Amplifier

www.pedalpcb.com

There's some other options if convenience is more of a factor, such as the SPARK NEO headphone amp, which has built in amp/cab sim processing and bluetooth streaming.

 

[iamjackslackof]

I've used a cheap active USB mixer with an Iridium before, worked great.

 

[rossbalch]

Where will the external audio come from? If it's from a computer then possible an interface is actually the easiest way.

 

[keevohn]

Yep, from a laptop or iPad. Just trying to get Spotify/ YouTube / Capo files to play along with.

 

[rossbalch]

An interface that directly sends the inputs to the monitoring mix is probably what you want then, most entry level interfaces do that these days, even the Behringer ones.

 

[keevohn]

Thanks all - seems like I'm in the market for an interface!