So, confirming what’s been said on here but thought I’d try a setup for myself, nothing beats getting your hands on to learn how something works. Here’s what I did;
Took outputs 1&2 to two separate monitor speakers, i setup the lane output to 1&2 and put a ping pong delay at the end of the chain. The delay did exactly as expected, I heard the deley going from left to right. I then pulled the right XLR out of the QC and the delay effectively doubled in time, in other words I was only hearing one side so this is the first proof; the QC does not automatically Sum to mono when a plug is pulled (Other modellers switch from Stereo to Mono automatically in this scenario). So then, I changed the output to just OUT 1 and sure enough the ping pong delay went back to normal speed but only out of one side, so this proves that with Stereo effects into mono out you will get both L&R out of the one output. So for me, (apart from the fact it does not automatically sum to mono on connector removal which is no biggy for me) It does exactly what I want, and adding a splitter that outputs to OUT 2 as a mono duplicate of mono OUT1 even with stereo effects is perfect for enabling me to have a floor monitor and an output to FOH. Also means no need for a sum to mono block. However, there is one case where I can see sum to mono is really useful, when I don’t want to use an entire lane for my splitter, then use a sum to mono and output to 1&2; it will be mono in both so monitoring and FOH will get the same but you’ve used one block instead of one lane. I appreciate others have covered this already, It just helps clarify it for my own head and gives others the chance to tell me I’m wrong (or right!). What would be useful to complete my knowledge is if anyone knows this: If I use a mono block (say a simple delay) after a stereo block then is the mono block converting the stereo signal to mono? Would be useful to know as this way I could lose a sum to mono block
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