In all of the tutorial videos or sales videos that I’ve seen promoting VST Connect, the sessions are between 2 musicians working from their home set ups, which REQUIRES HEADPHONES to avoid delays, feedbac, etc.
But what if you’re working with a commercial studio? Are those headphone restrictions still necessary? The talent is in a separate performance room and VST Connect is presumably patched into the control room with the onsite Engineer. Does he have to wear HPs or can he just listen to the monitors? Can I get away with not wearing the HPs as long as there’s no Talkback situation in progress?
It seems to me that as there is no DIRECT loop between me and the talent, I should be able to just monitor off the speakers while they’re recording… But I’m not sure. Is this possible?
Sure control room can operate on speakers. Talkback is switched automatically anyways, and you can use the DIM function to lower speaker volume so to avoid the Performer to hear too much of his or her own voice via control room speakers while Studio TB is engaged. It is all built into Cubase/Nuendos’ Control Room. You may also assign a key command to the Talkback switch (like “t”) to switch it manually as desired, which resembles the oldschool way of control room operation as it has been done since broadcasting in the early 20th century.
Performer is always monitored directly via the VST Connect Monitor plugin inserted directly after your main Monitor and/or Headphone output. And as said, the default operation automatically mutes TB during recording (or playback), so yes, it is not only possible but the designated way. You are advised to read the Cubase or Nuendo manual (yes I know…) about Control Room, there are additional interesting options to discover there.