Monitor section level and metering in the Control Room

Cubase
1

Is it possible to have the volume of the output of the plugins inserted in the Control Room monitor section affected by the Control Room Level, and also to have the output of the monitor section shown on the Control Room meters?

I am using a plugin for referencing mixes in the Monitor chain of the Control room and it would come in handy to have it controlled by the Control Room settings.

2

I think the answer might be in part yes, if I understand your question. But why have the output of the monitor section shown on the control room meters? You could just insert an independent metering plug-in instead?

3

I’d be thankful for actually telling me how to do it. :wink:

I want to keep my setup as simple as possible, thus I prefer not to use additional plugins if possible - and I want to be able inspect and compare the loudness in particular.
Other thing is, when I change the volume of my monitoring in the Control Room, only my mix is affected and not the output of the monitor chain, which requires me to manually adjust the chains output volume to match it with my mix’s volume - and I change the Control Room volume constantly.

4

You mean, insert a plug-in in the Monitor inserts section?? I’m assuming you already know how to do that because you mentioned it in your first post… as follows:

What plug-in are you using here and why/how?

There are two insert racks in the Control Room. Click on Main and Monitors under the Control Room tab. Which one are you using?

Could you provide a screenshot of what you are doing and why? If you outline precisely what you are doing and why, it would be easier to advise.

Why use the Control Room for all this?
Why not use Groups or Busses in the Mixer?

P.S. For loudness comparisons did you consider using Audio / Statistics ?

5

I apologize for not being clear. I will try to explain the issue in a simpler manner.
I use Magic A/B from samplemagic: https://www.samplemagic.com/details/184/magic-ab.
It was in the Monitors rack in the Control Room and it was working as intended. I could switch between my mix and the reference tracks in the plugin using it’s A/B feature.

The issue was:

  1. The big, red “Control Room Level” knob in the Control Room only changed the volume of my mix, but not of the plugin - my conclusion was that the Monitors rack is post the big, red “Control Room Level” knob and the meters - which makes sense, as its purpose is to affect a particular set of speakers while leaving others unaffected.
  2. The output of Magic A/B didn’t go through Control Room meters.

But you have lead me to the solution, by asking the right question!
There are two racks - Monitors and Main, and I should have been using the Main rack of course, not the Monitors rack, which I was using.

The Control Room layout is inconsistent, as most the racks are placed directly under the bar that opens them, but not the Main Rack - the rack itself is below the Talkback button, while the Main bar is above the Control Room controls - which confused me. It looked as if the rack is for Talkback instead of the Main output, though I knew there is a separate Talkback rack on the top of the control room, it didn’t click with me.

Anyway, thanks a lot for your help!

Edit: unfortunately it looks like it is not possible to pass the main racks output through the control room meter, though the Control room level knob affects its volume.