About internal and external connections Unlike other devices, the Combinator contains both external and internal audio connections. External connections are used to connect a Combinator to devices outside the Combi. Internal connections are how devices within the Combi are connected. External connections The “Combi Output L/R” connectors carry the audio output of the Combinator. This output connects with a device outside the Combi, normally a mixer. Internally, this output is connected to the “From Devices” connectors. When you create a new Combinator this output will be auto-routed to the first available mixer input channel. The “Combi Input L/R” connectors is the input to the Combinator (used for effect Combis only). Internally, this input is connected to the “To Devices” connectors. Internal Connections The “From Devices L/R” inputs is where the outputs from devices in the Combi are connected. The “To Devices L/R” outputs connect to an input on a device in the effect Combi. About External Routing If an individual device in the Combi is directly connected to a device outside the Combinator, this is known as an “External Routing” connection, which should generally be avoided. The reason for this is that such connections are not saved with the Combi patch. Therefore, all connections to/from a Combi should pass via the To/From Device connectors on the Combinator device if you wish to make the Combi self-contained. If a Combi contains external routing connections, this is indicated both on the front and back panels of the Combinator; On the front panel “External Routing” is displayed in the Patch name display, and on the back panel a LED indicator is lit. It is still possible to use a Combi with External Routing connections within the context of a song (where all routings are saved with the song). Just keep in mind that the external routing connections will not be part of the patch! How to avoid external routing connections As explained previously, all connections to/from a Combinator device should pass via the To/From Device connectors in order to make the Combi self-contained. Therefore you need to include a mixer device for Combis with more than 2 device outputs. Say you were to combine three instrument devices (each with stereo outputs connected to a mixer) in order to create a layered or split instrument Combi. If you simply selected these three instrument devices (but not the mixer) and then selected “Combine”, only one of the devices would be auto-routed to the “From Devices” connectors, while the other two devices would have the same connections they had before combining. Therefore: When combining several instrument devices, connect them to a mixer device and include this mixer in the Combi. This way, all the instrument device outputs in the Combi can be connected to separate input channels in the mixer. The mixer device output can then be routed via the “From Devices” connectors and thus the Combi will be self-contained. Instrument devices and effects connected to a Line Mixer 6:2 within the Combi. The Line Mixer 6:2 is ideally suited for mixing device outputs in Combis (see “The Line Mixer 6:2”).
