Solved Questions about bus channels/bus master, sends/cue mix, solo and Quantum HD8 remote control

[brmichael]

Hi,

in my current project I use bus channels for strings (combining 3 instrument tracks for violin, viola and string ensemble) and drums (combining 2 instrument tracks for drums and percussion).

To provide playback for the vocalist (through output channels 3+4 and headphone output #2 of my Quantum HD8), I first set up a cue mix. This brought up cue mix send faders in each channel, but not in the bus channels. Why? I'd like to send the bus channels to the cue mix rather than have to create a new strings or drum mix for playback. Is there any way to send a bus channel to the cue mix?
Because of that restriction, I decided to use pre fader sends instead of the cue mix to create the playback mix. The master for these sends is routed to outputs 3+4 of my interface and thus to the headphone for the vocalist. This works fine in both channels and bus channels. But why is this possible with sends, but not with cue mix sends?

Another question is about soloing the master for the playback mix. Sometimes I'd like to hear the playback mix (as the singer hears it in her headphone) through my main monitors or at least my headphones (connected to headphone output #1 of the Quantum HD8). But soloing the master for the playback mix doesn't behave as expected. It just soloes the bus master and randomly soloes a few of the other channels (at the moment, pressing "Solo" on the headphone bus master soloes the bus master and 2 of the string instruments channels, but no other channel). In addition, soloing a bus master mutes the main master. Why? How can I solo the playback bus so that I can hear nothing else but the playback mix through my main monitors or my headphones?

The third question is about controlling a Quantum HD8 interface from within Studio One. Most of this works fine so far, but some very important features are missing. At least, it offers a way to control playback mix through my headphones: I just have to change the source for headphone output #1 from main l/r output to outputs 3+4 of my interface, which can be done within Studio One. As outputs 3+4 carry the playback mix, I can now hear the playback mix through my headphones. But this is less convenient than just clicking "Solo" in the playback mix master.

The features I'm missing in interface integration: it's apparently impossible to control volumes of the main and headphone outputs from within Studio One. To set main/headphone volumes, I have to launch Universal Control or walk over to my interface. You can control many settings of a Quantum interface from within Studio One, why can't you control main/headphone volumes? Or did I overlook something?

Regards,

Michael

 

[brmichael]

The strange behaviour of Studio One regarding soloing confuses me.

This is how my console is set up now:


Note that there are sends on each channel, except the "Violins" and "Viola" channels, which are routed to a "Strings" bus, which has a send. The reason for this is that I want to send the complete strings mix to the playback rather than the two string instruments individually.
There also is a send bus routed to outputs 3+4. I called this "HP 2", as it feeds the headphones on headphone output #2 of my interface. These headphones are supposed to deliver playback to the singer.

Meanwhile I found out how to solo the send bus (which works as a cue bus for me, reasons for this are described above): I activated the listen bus and sent it's output to the main out of my interface. I called the listen bus "Monitor", because the main out it's assigned to feeds both my monitors and my headphones. After that, I activated "Solo through Listen Bus" (in the wrench menu of the console).

When I click on "Solo" of the send bus, I can hear the send bus (= cue mix) through my monitors and my headphones, which is what I wanted. What annoys me, however, is the fact that clicking on "Solo" of the send bus automatically soloes the "Violins" and "Violas" track, too. This is what my console then looks like:


Note that I did not click on "Solo" of the "Violins" and "Violas" channels. For some reason I don't know, they are automatically soloed after soloing the "HP 2" bus. As a result, the output signals of these channels appear twice on the listen bus, namely through "Solo" of the individual channels and a second time through the "Strings" bus they're routed to. That makes the strings sound very strange and too loud.

How can I stop the "Violins" and "Violas" channels automatically getting soloed when soloing the "HP 2" mix bus? I'll appreciate any advice.

Regards

Michael

 

[Gerran]

I did some quick testing over here, but I cannot reproduce your scenario. Solo-in-place works as expected for me, just the channels solo that I ask to be solo'ed. You are correct however, in that busses can't be routed to cue-mixes. I've mostly worked with pre-fader sends anyway, so that has never been an issue for me. But my guitar bus solo'd doesn't solo the guitar tracks. An FX channel solo'd does solo it's feeding channels as well though..

 

[dean.winter]

Hi,

in my current project I use bus channels for strings (combining 3 instrument tracks for violin, viola and string ensemble) and drums (combining 2 instrument tracks for drums and percussion).

To provide playback for the vocalist (through output channels 3+4 and headphone output #2 of my Quantum HD8), I first set up a cue mix. This brought up cue mix send faders in each channel, but not in the bus channels. Why? I'd like to send the bus channels to the cue mix rather than have to create a new strings or drum mix for playback. Is there any way to send a bus channel to the cue mix?
Because of that restriction, I decided to use pre fader sends instead of the cue mix to create the playback mix. The master for these sends is routed to outputs 3+4 of my interface and thus to the headphone for the vocalist. This works fine in both channels and bus channels. But why is this possible with sends, but not with cue mix sends?

Another question is about soloing the master for the playback mix. Sometimes I'd like to hear the playback mix (as the singer hears it in her headphone) through my main monitors or at least my headphones (connected to headphone output #1 of the Quantum HD8). But soloing the master for the playback mix doesn't behave as expected. It just soloes the bus master and randomly soloes a few of the other channels (at the moment, pressing "Solo" on the headphone bus master soloes the bus master and 2 of the string instruments channels, but no other channel). In addition, soloing a bus master mutes the main master. Why? How can I solo the playback bus so that I can hear nothing else but the playback mix through my main monitors or my headphones?

The third question is about controlling a Quantum HD8 interface from within Studio One. Most of this works fine so far, but some very important features are missing. At least, it offers a way to control playback mix through my headphones: I just have to change the source for headphone output #1 from main l/r output to outputs 3+4 of my interface, which can be done within Studio One. As outputs 3+4 carry the playback mix, I can now hear the playback mix through my headphones. But this is less convenient than just clicking "Solo" in the playback mix master.

The features I'm missing in interface integration: it's apparently impossible to control volumes of the main and headphone outputs from within Studio One. To set main/headphone volumes, I have to launch Universal Control or walk over to my interface. You can control many settings of a Quantum interface from within Studio One, why can't you control main/headphone volumes? Or did I overlook something?

Regards,

Michael

Hi Michael
Not sure about the solo behavior, but you can get Cue Mix sends to show up in busses by checking this option:

Keep in mind, that will disable it on tracks and it will only show up on busses and sends (yeah, it's not my favorite thing either), but that'll do it.

Dean

 

[brmichael]

I did some quick testing over here, but I cannot reproduce your scenario. Solo-in-place works as expected for me, just the channels solo that I ask to be solo'ed. You are correct however, in that busses can't be routed to cue-mixes. I've mostly worked with pre-fader sends anyway, so that has never been an issue for me. But my guitar bus solo'd doesn't solo the guitar tracks. An FX channel solo'd does solo it's feeding channels as well though..

Thanks for your response.

It's not the first time I notice that Studio One behaves strange on one day and totally normal on the other day. I had this kind of a problem with cue mix sends: their visibility was toggled each time I opened the console. Opening it once - cue mix sends were there. Closing and re-opening the console: cue mix sends were gone. Only one particular project was affected. Weird, isn't it? But all of a sudden this problem was gone. Without me changing anything on the project, of course.

The unwanted soloing of the violins and violas channels when soloing the HP 2 bus master is still there, though. I wonder if that disappears one day.

@dean.winter: thanks for the hint. I will try that in my next project and see if there are any unwanted side effects. In this project, I will keep the "regular" sends, as they work fine for me.

 

[brmichael]

I could reproduce the weird behavior.

First, I created a new song. I activated the listen bus and set up 2 outputs (main; routed to master output l/r, and HP 2; routed to outputs 3+4 of my interface). I inserted a reverb effect into the "HP 2" master. I also activated "Solo through listen bus".
After that, I created 2 instrument tracks and a bus channel. I set the 2 instrument channels to send their outputs to the bus channel. Bus output is routed to the main output. In addition, I set up a pre-fader send to "HP 2" for the bus channel, while the instrument channels have no sends.
This is what the console looks like after this:

At this time, soloing the "HP 2" master works correctly. When soloing the "HP 2" master nothing else gets soloed and you can hear a mix of the two instrument tracks coming from the bus channel.

Now I added a mono audio track as the first track which is routed directly to the main master (no bus for this channel). The audio track's input is assigned to the mic input of my interface. I also set up a send to "HP 2" for this track. After this, the console looked like this:

Now soloing the "HP 2" master automatically soloes channels 2 and 3 rather than soloing only "HP 2" master. But it gets even weirder: even after deleting the mic track, soloing "HP 2" still doesn't work correctly.

I'd really like to know what's going on here and how to get rid of this.

Regards,

Michael

 

[brmichael]

@dean.winter Your hint was very valuable. After activating "Cue mix follows channel", cue mix sends appeared in the bus channels. So I finally could replace the "regular" sends by cue mix sends. That also eliminated the strange solo behaviour. Soloing the "HP 2" master only sets solo on this master without soloing anything else. Now everything works as I want it to. Many thanks for your help!

It's a bit weird though, that the settings needed for a particular purpose are spread across so many places in Studio One.

I'll mark this thread as solved, although my question about remote controlling main and headphone volumes of my Quantum HD8 from within Studio One still is unanswered.

 

[SwitchBack]

I'll mark this thread as solved, although my question about remote controlling main and headphone volumes of my Quantum HD8 from within Studio One still is unanswered.

That's probably because those output controls are analog pots on the interface, so can't be controlled remotely.

 

[brmichael]

The Quantum HD8 has not a single analog pot. All settings are digital and can be remote controlled, including main and headphone volumes. But unlike other settings, that you can control from within Studio One, you need Universal Control (a software!) to remote control main and headphone volumes. At this point I wonder why Studio One seems not to be capable of something that Universal Control is, especially because all these products share the same vendor.

 

[SwitchBack]

Ah, never too old to learn. Maybe PreSonus forgot too as those controls always used to be analog pots, as a trim almost.