Foldback
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During a live music performance, the sound performers hear from the rear-facing loudspeakers on stage is referred to as the foldback mix. This may be produced on the same physical console as the main mix for the audience (called the 'front of house' mix), or may have a dedicated engineer and console on stage.
Foldback is essential to performers as the sound they hear from front of house will reverberate; most of what they hear will be reflected from the rear wall of the venue and will therefore be delayed and distorted.
Artists need to hear a mix that is dry (i.e. without electronic effects / acoustic reverb etc.) and projected directly to them if they are to stay in time and in tune with each other; the most obvious symptom of a poor or absent foldback mix is vocalists singing off-tune.
The term foldback is also less correctly applied to 'in-ear monitoring' systems - these are better described as 'artist's cue-mixes' as they' are generally set up for individual performers.
In power supply design, foldback is a function whereby a constant voltage power supply's output current is reduced under overload conditions, generally to maintain a constant power dissipation in a load. Most power supplies employ simple current-limiting protection; foldback goes one step further by reducing the output current limit linearly as output voltage increases, maintaining constant output power.
The term may also (though less commonly) be applied to less sophisticated current-limit protection in audio power amplifiers.