Audio Interface Hookup Question

Nuendo
#1

I’ve been using a desk for years. Even with my Artist Series Controller/Transport units, all the audio still passes through my DA-7 desk.

I am in the process of transitioning to an ITB rigg. Since my desk is doing little more than monitoring the stems that come out of Nuendo and the fact that it tops out at 48K, I’m finding it harder and harder to justify it’s continued use. So now, I’m reading the manuals and specs on the audio interfaces I’ll purchase that will replace the desk. But I’m having difficulty understanding how this is going to connect together to make the Artists Series Gear become the new desk.

I assumed that Nuendo’s Control room would allow some sort of connection with the Artist Series Control. But I’m not finding it. :astonished: Here’s what came ujp in the frop down menu for the N7 Control Room.
Nuendo 7.1 Control Room Menu.jpg
All it’s showing is plug-ins (???) How do I get it to see my RME RayDat Card and my monitors? The Nuage Tutorials made it look like the connections would be a snap. But alas, I will be trying to achieve the same thing with an Artist Control, Transport and 2 Mix units (20 fader total).

I’m planning on a system using a Focusrite 8 Ch. Mic Pre, Audient 8 Ch. Mic Pre and a couple of 4 Ch. API Pres feeding an Orion 32 Ch. ADDA into my PC via the 32 Ch, RayDat card. I wanted the basic set up to work with 1 Mix and the MC to act as the faders of the desk and the 2nd Mix to act as the 8 Bus/VCA/Aux Master section of the desk. I’ve got to connect 2 pairs of stereo monitors and a 5.1 set of monitors, that theoretically should be able to be controlled from the Artist Series Units, right?

Can someone talk me through this process, there is literally only one line of information on the Control/Monitor knob on the MC Control. The Mix Units don’t arrive until next week, so I don’t have any other info on them other than how to connect them.

Anybody here using the setup I just described? Can you help? Right now, I may have just found the reason to keep the desk, just for simplification purposes!

#2

In your screenshot you’re showing the Control Room mixer panel. You’re right that it’s showing plug-ins, that’s what it’s supposed to do depending on what ‘tab’ you have selected at the bottom. The ‘tabs’ at the bottom are “mixer” and “setup”. In the latter you set up anything you want to modify the signal. In the former you select the monitoring source as well as ’monitors’ (destination). So make sure you have the right tab selected.

That should take care of setting up Control Room and the routing / processing of actual signals…

When it comes to your Artist devices I would expect them to be selected / enabled / controlled in the “Device Setup” menu, not the “VST Connections” menu. And as far as then using those devices to actually control Nuendo I’m again guessing you’ll have to look elsewhere, meaning the documentation for the specific device and possibly accompanying dedicated control software, and/or again the “Device Setup” menu and submenues.

I’m a bit low on coffee + a bit of an idiot, so maybe it’s just me not understanding what you’re looking for though…

#3

Never mind. Based on what I just found out on the Artist Series Forum http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?p=2389318#post2389318 it looks like I’ll just be swapping out the DA-7 for an 02R-96. Interface problem solved, no learning curve and I don’t have to waste any faders to rebuild the functions already covered totally by the desk! Thanks anyway.

#4

Control room functionality works with Nuendo and the Artist Control. The control room knob controls the control room level and then you have other soft keys to control the other elements (dim, talkback, fold down etc). It sounds like the thread on the Avid site was talking about SME.

#5

What’s SME? Regarding the Control room/monitor knob,when/if I can get a view of SOMETHING on the screen, what should I be seeing? I can’t believe there’s no view of this in the manual

#6

SME = Studio Monitor Express. On the Artist Control there should be a “setup” tab which takes you to control room functionality. There are also pre-made layouts/command triggers which have additional control room functionality which you can modify as much as you want.

#7

The thread is growing. They’re saying emphatically that the control room knob does NOT WORK! The moderator said that was the reason for his dumping is 4 Mix units. With that as a given, I’m not going to waste another second on this issue. My desk still works great. In fact, unlike EVERY other piece of DAW related gear, it’s the only thing to work consistently over the past 2 decades!

I cancelled the 2nd Mix order. The 12 fader configuration should be enough to handle most layouts.

#8

FWIW, I’ve never had any trouble with any of my MC Controls managing the control room level.

Chewy

#9

This is strange - the control room function has been working for me for quite a while.
Very recently it has disappeared and I don’t know how to get it back.
My wild guess is that AVID have killed it with some update.

#10

Control room knob and “Setup : Control Room” page on Artist Control work here.
Eucon3.4.0 (3.4.1 is broken) and Nuendo 7.1.

#11

I’m on version 3.4.0 11171610. Is that the same as 3.4.0? The ONLY tab I have on my Eucontrol Page that even refers to the control room/monitor knob is this.
Eucon Control Room-Monitor Tab.jpg
I don’t see anything to adjust. It’s either locked or not. I never saw the SME app you referred to. However this is supposed to work, I clearly don’t have all the necessary components to make it function as ADVERTISED.

#12

You’re welcome to do what you want but the control room knob does work. From your screen shot you’re looking in the wrong place. The setup tab is on the actual MC Control unit - not inside of EuControl. In EuControl you can go to your surface setup and on a particular page there will be Control Room related commands. On the physical unit jump to that page and get your additional command triggers.

There appears to be a bug in EuControl 3.4.1 where the control room won’t work unless you remove/re-add it as a device but previous versions of EuControl work fine.

#13

Yeah, I saw that. The soft tabs are all blank, except for the 2nd from top which says 'MIX" under control room source. THAT’S why I thought there was some other tab in Eucon to get it to see my Raydat Card. There’s nothing but the power cable and the ethernet cable to connect to the hardware, so, it has to be some kind of software connection. Do I have to download SME? How do I get it to see my monitors? That page is totally blank! The VST Connection page shows both sets of monitors.
Nuendo 7.1 Control Room Monitor Set View.jpg
So, I don’t understand why the MC Setup page is only showing “Mix” in the control room source and nothing in the monitor source. How do I get it to see it? :question:

#14

The control surfaces are just that, control surfaces. They do not pass audio in any way and they use EuCon to communicate with Nuendo and tell it what to do. I’m not 100% sure what you’re asking but if Nuendo can see your hardware then there shouldn’t be any issues.

On your MC Control unit you should have a couple of options:

  1. under the setup tab you can quickly access certain control room features (and dedicated CR knob controls the CR level)
  2. On the main page of the unit under the touchscreen commands there should be a “Control Room” command which jumps you to page 71 (you could of course scroll to page 71) where you will have access to additional Control Room commands. Remember - these are just default command setups and can be completely changed/configured/extended to your uses. Get to know the EuControl software’s “Softkeys” page as this is where you can configure what commands the control surface hardware triggers.
#15

In Eucontrol sofkeys Tab, select “Touchscreen” under section and page 71 here you’ll be able to edit your touchscreen shorctuts.
However, if you like me prefer having direct access buttons to : monitor sets, inputs, mono/stereo… Then you can use the “Surface” entry to modify the use of the twelve hardware buttons bellow the screen.