hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr4664.txt

Episode: 4664
Title: No Input Mixing Tutorial and How to Build a Drone Box 
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4664/hpr4664.mp3
Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:13 (official HPR transcript)

---

This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4664, for 2026-06-18
Today's show is entitled, "No Input Mixing Tutorial and How to Build a Drone Box "
The host is TheDUDE and the duration is 00:13:20
The flag is Explicit, and the license is CC-BY-SA
The summary is "A tutorial on some of the techniques used in Noise, Industrial, and Experimental music"
Okay, hello, hacker public radio, this is the dude here, it's been a long while since I had a chance to podcast for hacker public radio here, but I noticed that a lot of the shows that have been popping up are from the reserve to you, and I figured, well this is a set of for me to get off my ass,
and actually record something, so today I'm kind of doing not so much like a music theory thing, but more so like a tutorial, and the tutorial I'm doing is kind of like on like, I guess on the experimental side of music, this technique stuff that I'm kind of doing tutorial on is a no input mixing,
and that's for common and like shall we say, noise music and in some forms of industrial music like death industrial power electronics, which you know both are forms of noise music as well,
and other forms of experimental music also use the input mixing, and what no input mixing is basically you take mixing board, and you're more or less turn it into a synthesizer, and how you end up doing that is actually something very, very simple, you take like a mixing console,
and you take a patch cable from one of like the outputs, this particular one that I have is the Yamaha MG06, which has two stereo outputs that are quarter inch jacks,
there's also a separate headphone jack, which is quarter inch, which really really helps.
also have two XLR or stereo outputs, a land for line ends, I got a quarter inch, two quarter inches, slash XLRs for channel 1, same with channel 2,
and channel 3, slash 4, or like the line, or quarter inch, same with 5, slash 6 line, and both of them have various knobs and buttons that change different things, also a button for mono stereo,
there is a button for the fan power, you do not, and I repeat, do not use the fan power for no input mixing, because you will fry your board if you do that, so instead, whatever that, do not press the fan power, but what you basically do for no input mixing, if you can hear what I'm doing kind of the background, you take the output, you put a patch cable in there and patch it into an input,
and you create a feedback loop, and you can do that with numerous different patch cables to like patch in the different parts, and there you can also get like white splitters, that way you can run multiple patches and different combinations to shape the feedback loop and create different sounds, that's one way to do no input mixing.
Another way is to basically do the same concept, but have it just be like a chain of different tar pedals, especially like reverb and distortion, that's actually the cheapest way to really do it, she can get like barrens your pedals for real cheap, and you kind of more or less the way you're doing that is actually kind of like a cheap form of a
modular synthesizer, especially if you get like a tremolo pedal or a vibrato pedal, because then you can change the rhythm, a little bit, there's that, and also if you have like a graphic EQ, you can change the pitch of the feedback loop,
but at least have more control of the rhythm and control of the pitch of the feedback loop.
Like you can change the pitch with the mixing board and also like the pedals without a graphic EQ or a drum or vibrato pedal, but it's going to be more so random as opposed to predictable,
which comes to the last thing that I will say that you can do with a no input mixing is create a drone box.
Now how do you do that? Well you get a rack case and what I mean by a rack case is a case for like audio effects for like a pretty much kind of like a rack guitar,
like a rack amp or stuff for like a PA, but more or less you get like a you know, and audio effects rack, you know, not a Euro rack, which has to do with modular synth,
and we're not talking modular synth racks, we're talking like PA audio or different like guitar effects, you know, mixing racks, you get that.
I recommend getting a sort of like power supply where you can plug multi multiple power plugs into,
you should start with that because it'll make things a lot easier, especially if there isn't many outlets at like a venue that you're performing at, but you want to get one of those.
I want to get a graphic EQ because like I said, a graphic EQ, well, if you move the volume knob or slide, like the master volume knob or slide, it will change the pitch of the feedback loop that you're doing, and then you want to add two rack effects.
I mean you get away with one, but two will give you a little bit more variety, typically what people use for like, for like a drone box is that you have a one sets of delay and the other one set to like a reverb,
but you can probably have like two delays, two reverbs, or like one with like a distortion effect, like you can get like a rat pedal racks for pretty cheap on the used, same with like when it comes to like a graphic EQ and different rack effects,
typical places to get that stuff used is eBay and reverb. The most expensive thing is honestly that I found is probably the rat case itself, but,
regardless, you get all that you have the output of the graphic EQ or at least one of the outputs into connecting into one of your effects rack modules,
and then you have the other one connected to the one effect module, it's output into the input of the other effect module, and when it comes to the graphic EQ, typically you're going to have like two outputs and two inputs, you just put one input into one output into the input,
and you create a feedback loop that way, just like the no mix, sorry, no input mixing board or mixing console, but when you do that, you basically have like a droning sound that will echo, and you can basically make some like experimental weird ambient stuff that way, or if you add like a distortion effect to it,
you can get a really really low droning heavy distorted bass sound, that's like in like a do metal record or stuff like,
some of like the harsher like throbbing gristle songs, for those that are unaware of who throbbing gristle is, throbbing gristle is the band that started like industrial music,
and they were very, very noisy and experimental and intense band that basically used the same like no input mixing techniques, like that I'm talking about not to mention they also made like the written synthesizers and different instruments and shit,
as for do metal as I was saying prior before I think black Sabbath and other bands that try to mimic black Sabbath, and typically it's like you know slow low heavy heavy metal is what do metal is, and you can basically kind of make like a electronic version of that with a drone box if you so choose to,
but the main thing is to use all these things is to basically experiment have fun as someone that pervert that creates like noise music, I basically like doing like these different like no input mixing techniques and feedback loop techniques,
to really like basically experiment with like different noises and soundscapes as like some sort of like mad scientist type of thing,
where everything's chaotic, everything is basically for the most part random, and nothing gets predictable and boring, and I really recommend other people to really experiment with stuff like this,
because you can get really creative with different things and there are no, there's really like no particular rules within these genres and how to adapt these techniques,
I actually even if it comes to like semi input which means like you have like no input like mixing techniques along with like adding like a synth like an actual synthesizer and there like or an oscillator generating like a noise that gets some adapted and shaped through like you know different feedback loops,
or in one case what I actually kind of plan on doing is running a CV radio through like a set of like distortion pedals and refer,
been seeing what kind of sound I get from that, haven't tried it yet but I'll be sure that let you guys know like how noise he if that is when I get around to doing that,
but anyway this is what I have so far hopefully I can add something that's a little bit more structured and well thought out to contribute to what's happening,
but I could contribute to shows with hacker public radio, but I figured I could do this one really quick so that way, you know the reserve queue isn't getting used up quicker than shows or being made, so that being said I'll see everybody later.
You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org.
Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself.
If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is.
Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network.
Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license.