As venues got larger, the PA systems increased in size. Soon thereafter, the sound technician moved from behind the stage to the middle of the room as a means to tame the beast. As the PA got louder and drums played with more vigour the band on stage could no longer hear themselves so more speakers were added that pointed at the band called side-fills.

"Now if only I could hear my voice above the guitars" uttered the lead
singer while the bass player exclaimed "I can't hear the kick drum!" and all of a sudden a different mix was needed on stage—the monitor mix. This would be different from the main sound mix in the room. It addressed the needs of the musician so that they could comfortably perform. To make this work, you would have to split the mic signal to drive two mixing consoles simultaneously... The mic splitter was born.

A mic splitter's task is to take the mic signal and split it to various
destinations such as the FOH or room mix position, the monitor desk and often, to a separate recording console. In an effort to avoid hum and buzz caused by ground loops, the most successful designs often employ audio transformers to isolate the stray electrical currents which are the primary source for noise.

With the recent advent of compact and mobile digital recording equipment, the demand has steadily increased for higher quality interfacing to allow noise-free recording of live performances. This has recently been amplified with the proliferation of live pod-casts, real time broadcast and sophisticated in-ear monitoring systems.

For recording, one of the most demanding 'links' in the audio chain is the microphone splitter. Unfortunately, off-the-shelf options have always been limited by quality, noise and inadequate connectivity, while custom offerings have generally been too expensive to consider.

Drawing from 15 years of expertise in building splitters and snakes of al types, from two to 64 channels and up, the Radial design team put their heads together to create a simple 8-channel solution. It would be easy to use, expandable, reasonably priced and provide the sound engineer with the quality that Radial is famous for.

The result: The Radial OX8.

We started with the concept that it had to adapt to all types of
applications. By making it a standard 19" device, it could easily be mounted in a case or permanent rack fixture.

Then it had to be portable for field recording. This meant that it had to
be small. With 8 inputs and 24 outputs, using XLRs would have made it huge! We decided to follow the lead set by Tascam and employ a 25-pin D-sub architecture. This way, we could reduce the size to a single rack space and still provide connectivity. With everyone including Digidesign and Yamaha also using D-subs, we felt that finding cables would not be an issue.

For the contractor who may need the OX8 for an installation, we added Euroblock or Phoenix style screw down & plug connectors. These are readily available at all electronic supply shops and a very common connector for the electrical trade. This would allow non-audio people to connect wires—essential when dealing with large electrical union or government installations.

These connections take up most of the back panel while leaving the front panel clear. This allowed us to add XLR inputs for quick connectivity. For instance, you could build a travel case with D-subs connecting between the OX8 and a digital recorder and have a rear-facing break-out panel built to suit. The front panel XLR inputs could then be used to connect the mics.

The audio circuit would follow the time-proven success of our Radial snake systems in that it would be passive. Now you may ask why passive? The simple answer comes down to control... both level and audio quality control.

Here's the beef: If the mic splitter is active, in other words it amplifies
the signal, it would therefore be a mic preamp and replace the front-end of your mixing console. This poses a question regarding the quality of the preamp being used—are you sure you want to replace the mic preamp in your $100,000 Midas with one built into a snake? How much are you willing to pay for this extra preamp?

Then what about control? In a live stage environment, where you may have 3 mixing consoles connected at the same time, who should be in charge of the trim control that sets the level coming from the mics? In an active system (and digital system for that matter), you only get one control point for setting the trim while in a passive design, each console can adjust the input level as needed without interacting with the others. Each can adjust the mic sensitivity to suit. Just imagine if the front of house mixer was in charge of the trim and decided to increase the gain on the lead vocal while the monitor engineer already had the volume up high in the in-ear monitors. Who will lose their job when the lead singer's ears are blown out?

This is why the Radial OX8 is passive. Simple – no headaches – literally! Transformer isolation eliminates buzz & hum, the connectivity is sufficient to handle most tasks and we have even added a -36dB pad to allow line level devices to be connected.

Now go ahead and turn it up another notch!