I use a mixer for my videos and my live stream. I use the Behringer Xenyx 1002 and I love it! I’ve was asked by a viewer, and a member of the community, called Liam, how to go about connecting a laptop to a mixer. This answer will be true for most computers and mixers.

I’ll try and make this as simple as possible. Most of the inputs on the mixer are 6.3mm Jack inputs. For each stereo track, there is one jack input for the right channel, and one for the left. These can be used as two individual mono tracks instead but I’m going to focus on using both together to get stereo. The audio output on most computers is also a jack, but the difference is that it will probably be smaller (3.5mm) and you’ll only have one which carries both left and right channels. So, the problem is getting from the small 3.5mm jack to two big 6.3mm jacks.

The answer is quite simple, with the help of some cables and adapters, available from Amazon. Firstly, we need to split the audio so the left channel is separate to the right channel. We can do this with a ’3.5mm stereo jack plug to two RCA phono plugs’ cable. I use this one: 3.5mm Jack to 2 x RCA Phono Stereo Audio Cable 3m Lead. I ordered a few of them from Amazon and they’ve worked well for what I use my mixer for. You might want to invest more to get better quality cables, however.

As you can see, this cable will split the two channels (left and right) but now we have the wrong plug. The RCA phono plug will not fit into the jack inputs on the mixer (the Xenyx 1002 actually has an input that these will fit in but most of the main inputs are different). This problem can be solved by this simple adapter: WE1195 Adaptor 6.3mm mono plug to RCA socket. I couple of them and you’ll be good to go!

I hope this helps anyone who has, or is thinking about getting, a mixer.

Tags: audio, computer, connect, howto, laptop, mixer

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