HD8 Internal Mix for Vocal Monitoring in Headphones (?)

[Gigalum]

This seems like such a primary function for the interface - I can't seem to find any description of what to do. The scenario is: the vocalist needs to hear the mains in his headphones, at reduced level, as the guide track. In addition, he needs to hear himself (his microphone) via the internal mixer (no lag from the DAW). And of course I want to be able to balance the loudness of those two sources for a comfortable mix to track with.
The UC manual merely mentions that this is possible (and its part of the advertising hype) but there is nothing on how to do it.
Any pointers please ?

 

[SwitchBack]

Make sure that your interface is not set to interface mode, so the internal DSP mixers must be active. With the DSP mixers active the DAW outputs no longer go 1:1 to interface outputs. You have to treat your interface as a mixer now, so in UC you have to set up an output/monitor mix which includes the live inputs AND the main mix returned from the DAW.

 

[Gigalum]

I have the solution in hand, just need to explore more to be sure of gain staging. The trick was to create a sub main / cue mix in Studio One and route it to the same outputs that I selected for the headphones on the HD8. In this case, I am using 7/8. So, now I have the vocalist mic on input 4 set up to also send to 7/8, the Studio One sub main output also sending to 7/8, and finally the headphones set to receive from 7/8. The send level to 7/8 on mic input 4 controls how much the vocalist hears of himself and the sub main fader controls how much of the cue sends. Works great, I just need to fine tune the various gains.
The other detail I need to suss out is, when I set up the sub main, I selected the cue mix check box in the audio I/O setup (which is how I got this working). But I am not seeing the little cue mix widgets in the console channel strips - need to figure that out.

 

[SwitchBack]

You may have to drag them into view. Hover the mouse over the edge of the area where you expect the cue controls and see if the cursor changes. That's when you can drag hidden stuff into view.

 

[Gigalum]

So bizarre - mind a little blown. Chasing this down I found that in the Studio One channel list the ellipsis has a toggle to "show all channels" (which is not the default and only toggles on - you have to manually go up to the actual channel/group area to toggle things back off). Anyway, turning that on revealed the "physical" outputs and THAT is where the cue mix widget was hiding. So unbeknownst to me, the default behavior of the S1 console is to show, I guess, "virtual" outputs that default to MAIN. Forcing it to show all channels exposes the "physical" output. And those two faders are independent.

Here's what it looks like: the strip on the left is the default, forcing it to show all channels reveals the strip on the right and you can see that the left is routed to main, the right points to the actual "physical" output of the plugin, and that's where the cue mix control is. So, this implies that I have to have double the "tracks" showing to work a cue mix setup. Gonna go scratch my chin a bit.

 

[Gigalum]

You may have to drag them into view. Hover the mouse over the edge of the area where you expect the cue controls and see if the cursor changes. That's when you can drag hidden stuff into view.

Thanks for the conversation, by the way.

 

[SwitchBack]

So bizarre - mind a little blown. Chasing this down I found that in the Studio One channel list the ellipsis has a toggle to "show all channels" (which is not the default and only toggles on - you have to manually go up to the actual channel/group area to toggle things back off). Anyway, turning that on revealed the "physical" outputs and THAT is where the cue mix widget was hiding. So unbeknownst to me, the default behavior of the S1 console is to show, I guess, "virtual" outputs that default to MAIN. Forcing it to show all channels exposes the "physical" output. And those two faders are independent.

Here's what it looks like: the strip on the left is the default, forcing it to show all channels reveals the strip on the right and you can see that the left is routed to main, the right points to the actual "physical" output of the plugin, and that's where the cue mix control is. So, this implies that I have to have double the "tracks" showing to work a cue mix setup. Gonna go scratch my chin a bit.
View attachment 2067

Nope, not here. For all cue-checked (stereo) outputs I get Cue mix controls on every channel, including channels to Main. So there's something else going on in your song.

 

[Gigalum]

Nope, not here. For all cue-checked (stereo) outputs I get Cue mix controls on every channel, including channels to Main. So there's something else going on in your song.

are you using an HD8 ?

 

[SwitchBack]

No, normally I'm using a Series III mixer but it should make no difference. Even without a multi-channel interface you can add cue outputs and set up cue mixes in Studio One (these mixes then going nowhere for lack of physical interface channels).