I've been using the equivalent of a second mixer in my rig since 2011, for exactly the reasons you state. It has worked flawlessly for me in many different situations and I love the separate FOH IEM mix I can receive in mono or stereo, along with my stereo keyboards (submixed in a Radial mixer), all separately controllable.cphollis wrote:I use two small mixers when playing with bands other than my own.
Mixer One sends keys to FOH and Mixer Two. Mixer Two combines FOH and keys to drive my IEMs. One knob will give you "more me" without affecting performance volumes.
It's clunky, but it works. Strange that no one has made a dedicated product for this role.
I've been using the Shure P4M, which is discontinued, though I believe there is a more recent variant and I think Rolls also makes one. I have two of them, one for my gig rig and one for my rehearsal rig. They are still available on the used market. What I love is that it sits in the rack alongside my Shure PSM900 wireless IEM rack (both are half rack form factor).
https://www.shure.com/en-MEA/products/a ... ariant=P4M