Looking for a foldback/talkback solution

[Neal]

I'd like to be able to send a talkback signal to 4 separate headphone mixes without using up one of the inputs on my recording interface (Steinberg UR824). The interface has mixing software that allows me to feed whatever inputs to whichever outputs, but then, obviously, I'm down one recording input.

A mixer with 4 stereo ins and 4 stereo outs along with a single mic input or a built-in mic would be ideal, but it's been surprisingly difficult to find something that simple. There are monitor controllers that have talkback functionality, but most of them only have one or two cue outs. The discontinued Mackie HMX-56 is a pretty cool unit, but there's no mic input, plus the fact that it's hard to even find one. Any recommendations?

I could rig together boxes to make this happen, but a single device would be much better. If I had a real console I suppose this wouldn't be a problem. I'm considering building something, but I don't know if I really have time to deal with that right now.

[tmarkov1]

You could get something like the ART 8 channel headphone mixer. Then you could use a little mixer with a mic pre and send a split of the mic to the "aux input" of each cue mix.... i have a variety of ways to accomplish this in my studio config... any sort of small mixer would do the trick. That way you can send out 4 independent mixes and one "split" TB mic...

[Neal]

I'm an idiot. I thought headphone amps with aux ins on each channel had to be in mono mode to mix between the main and the aux, but apparently not. I'll just feed a mic into the main input and the separate mixes to each stereo aux input and I'm set. Things usually are more simple than I try to make them.

[tmarkov1]

Look into the ART Headamp 6.... http://www.fullcompass.com/product/3892 ... OgoddGAALw