A mix of mixes can sometimes be exactly what you need to get out of a bind.
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The way I mix is often “distributed.” That is, I have at least an inner pair of loudspeakers and an outer pair. Generally, the inner pair gets vocals and the outer pair gets instruments.
Now, of course, what happens when you need outfills for an amphitheater (like at the Millcreek Summer Jam) is that you want a total of eight speakers: Inner main, outer main, inner fill, outer fill. What’s really a bummer is when you discover that one of those eight speakers has a failed HF driver.
So, after you pull down two boxes such that your outfills are a single loudspeaker each, what do you do? You could set up another bus, so that all channels go to the outfills AND one of the main pairs, but what if you want the outfills to reflect the results of processing you do on the primary buses – EQ, compression, and such?
The answer is a matrix. A matrix system lets you create a mix of mixes (i.e., a bus fed by the output of other buses). It’s very much like subgroups that feed a main bus, though with far more flexibility. All I had to do was combine my inner pair and outer pair buses into a matrix, and connect that matrix to the fill loudspeakers. As easy as you please, the show was back on track. Summer Jam saved!