Control Room help?

I generally monitor using just my sound card software, so all monitoring is done prior to Cubase. I’m comfortable with that, it works and doesn’t force me to run my buffer too low.

However, from time to time I do a session where the system is pretty much set up to use the DAW for monitoring. There is a headphone distribution system for the band, so I just have to get the appropriate signals to each spot. In the past I’ve just created additional outputs used aux sends for the mono more me outs and the stereo mix was going out the main stereo pair.

What I hate about that is I can’t change what I am hearing or the band will hear the change, overdubbing becomes a messy process, and you have to keep clicking the monitor button on many tracks to switch to playback then back to tracking.

I suspect using the control room could solve some of these problems, but I don’t have a lot of time prior to the session to figure this out - it’s next week. I’ve tried reading the manual, but my brain rebels for some reason…

Any help would be appreciated!

If youre sending the main mix, then the band will alys hear the changes made. That will be the same with control room. For input monitoring: There are several options in the preferences.

Surely it’s possible to set up a monitoring mix that is independent from the main mix. I guess I could do it using prefader sends, but what a pain.

U can use the cue for monitoring? So you can adjust your cue mix? Then you can still feed the band the main mix. But normally it’s the other way around? You would like to hear what you print and the bandmembers whatever helps them to perform best.
And at the end of the day those are just labels. It boils down to that you can send several mixes in parallel.
You choose one and you give them one. Then you can adjust them both independantly which, yes, will always be a lot of work if you choose to go that route.
Question is, what are you trying to achieve? And why?

You can set up up to 4 independent cue mixes using the Control Room. It’s pretty straightforward to set up and there are lots of advantages, such as listen function and instant switching of your own monitors between the main mix and cue mixes. You can also instantly change from sending the musicians a cue mix to sending them the main mix, for playback etc. It also allows you to send a click to a drummer but not to a singer, etc, and gives you assignable talkback facility so you can moan about the singer to the drummer and vice versa.

Enable Control Room
Assign some cue outputs in VST Connections
Open control room panel and cue rack in mix console then start building your cue mixes

I usually find the quickest way to do this is set up each cue mix using “use current mix levels/ from selected channels” and then adjust as needed for each musician.

Much easier and more elegant than using “aux” sends, and with loads more flexibility :slight_smile:

Thanks much for the help!

One question: where would I find “use current levels from selected channels?”

In the control room panel, hover over the cue section you are working on, and right click for a menu which has this among several other useful things

Studio has a headphone distribution system (as do I at home; I think this is common) with on stereo feed and 4 mono. Musicians will need to hear different mixes in the cans because the sound hitting their ears will be different (e.g drummer will not need as much, if any, drums in the cans as will everyone else) Meanwhile i’m in the control room with my own agenda (making sure everything is going down optimally), so I will need to adjust without affecting what anyone else hears.

At any rate, i am accustomed to monitoring using just the lynx mixer software, bypassing Cubase entirely , allowing for a higher buffer level and less latency, however this particular studio is set up in a way that makes that sort of monitoring difficult, and I believe their console has some issues which had an impact last time i tried to set it up to monitor in the way I prefer, so I have decided to go with the flow and use DAW monitoring. In the past i have found using the DAW for monitoring has been extremely unwieldy; I am trying to prepare so that it is less so this time.

Thanks to Ian I now understand the control room set up, and i can get around the limitation of 4 cue mixes by making one stereo and sending the sides in mono to the intended destination, so I believe it’s all good.

May be helpful ^^.