I’m trying to figure out how Cubase Control room could be useful for recording sessions which would include me and three more friends (guitarist/singer, bassist and pianist/keyboard player with his own gear and sounds). I never tried to activate it, yet, as I didn’t feel the need for, until now. So, few questions remain, after carefully reading the ‘Control room’ section of the Cubase Operation manual :
As my E-Mu 1616m has 2 S/PDIF connectors, 2 stereo line outs and an ADAT one still available, I tried to look for something like an ADAT headphones amplifier and, strangely, this kind of device doesn’t seem to exist. So how to be able to transmit cue mixes to the different performers, as these, the DAW, gear and monitors will be in the same room ?
If I understand well, cue mixes are made by using the relevent ‘Studio sends’ for each track. At the tracking stage, is there a panel (a kind of mixer) that allows to adjust the relative levels of the different studio sends for each cue mix, or is this done within the Control room mixer ?
As I’m usually working at 5 ms of latency, does this will significantly add a delay and requires the use of direct monitoring in the situation where a performer will have to record again his part as the other ones are already ‘in the box’ ?
Thnaks for any enlightments…
EDIT : I think that I found the solution for the question 2) in the ‘Setting up a studio cue mix’ paragraph, but well, it’s rather confusing… Would have liked something like an independent panel for each cue mix, unless I didn’t get it…
So, OK, two more devices needed… I’m getting a little afraid of the overall cost. Strange that no one thought about it, as it seems to me that there is a real need here…
I understand that there are up to four studio sends available. The question is : how to quickly adjust the different relative levels of each track, this for each cue mix ? I read the ‘Setting up a studio cue mix’ paragraph, but it seems everything but straightforwrad…
About the latency, I guess that tests in real situation will make my mind…
Actually its very quick to set up the studio sends. Just right click on the control room and you can enable and set any selected tracks studio sends to the mixers fader levels and/or pans, plus set to pre fader, all with a couple of mouse clicks.
Once set, you can also adjust the selected studio sends levels relatively with a click of the mouse.
You are reassuring me. Thanks for the precision… A little practice will help, I guess. So, if I enable the Control room, will I be able to test this kind of thing with the only headphones set that I have at disposal ?
The outputs ? Well, I have all the 8 inputs used for my different external instruments. 6 for the TX-802, D-110 and 05-R/W and 2 for my old Odyssey and MS20.
Indeed… Just have to find a decent headphones amplifier. Seems that there are a lot available out there : it’s up to me to find the good and not too expensive one.
Even the Behringer HA400, which is available for @£15 works fine. 4 headphone outs from 1 stereo jack input (if coming in from two mono jack outs on an aux send or whatever you will need an adapter to stereo jack.) Small sturdy metal box, plenty of volume, and a pot for each headphone. It’s a cheap and cheerful solution for headphone outs.
I recently bought a Behringer 8000, because once in a blue moon I record five vocalists, and the model below it had 4 headphone outs as opposed to 8. The difference was only 10 or 15 dollars, the unit is clean with plenty of gain.
Yeah the 8000 gets you 8 different output mixes, but if you don’t really need more than 4, the 4700 is a bit more versatile per channel, and can output to 12 headphones anyway (4 x 3). A plus for me is also that the direct inputs (more me) are on the front.
