Self on Audio, 3rd Edition

Chapter 12Electronic analogue switching, Part I: CMOS gates

(Electronics World, January 2004)

In the course of the years spent designing mixing consoles, I came to know a good deal about analogue switching. All but the most basic mixers have a PFL system—the acronym meaning Pre-Fade Listen. In other words, you can press a button on an input channel and have its contribution alone heard through your monitor speakers without disturbing the flow of signals to the main outputs. This requires the feed to the monitors to be switched, and for many years, the only way to do this was a double-pole relay going ‘clunk’ somewhere in the console. It was a great relief to all concerned when the arrival of the 4016 analogue switch meant that this function ...