I am running the sound board for our Choir. The mixer is a Yamaha 12 channel. We have more singers than channels and no money for a new mixer. I suggested buying a new mixer already. We were told from the music store which we bought our Yamaha that a Y-cord is a very bad choice because it would overload the system. I'm not an expert but I thought "bullshit" they just want to sell us a new mixer. Well, we would love to buy a new mixer but it is not in the budget at this time. Although we have no money for a new mixer, we also don't want to turn away singers in the Choir. So my ulimate question is: Y-cord or not???
If you know of a Choir Mic that would work better I might be able to spring for one of them instead. Currently we are using EV267 mics and a couple of Shure condencer mics ( I think they are 5.1). The problem with a choir mic is they pick up everything including the paper shuffle and the one that quitely says shit in the back row. Well that doesn't happen very often if at all. Any help would be appriciated. Thank you in advance (TIA)

Absolutely NO y-cord to an input...... usually you can split outputs with a y-cord without problems, but you NEVER merge two or more signals together to an input with a y-cord -- you need to sum signals together with a mixer....

And in any case, you certainly don't need 12 mics on a choir.... at the most 6, depending on the mic configuration you use....

All you really need is a pair in front (in coincident or XY configuration), and maybe an omni on each side to capture some of the back..... you don't close-mic a choir precisely because you want to capture the sound of the choir as a whole, and the acoustics of the room play a large role in this as well.... not to mention close-mic'ing would cause you to pick up all the paper-shufflling and motion of singers as they perform.....
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Bruce Valeriani - Mix Engineer