Question

I'm a Studio One 3 Pro user, but I've been reading about Cubase's Control Room, and I believe it's a feature many many many Studio One users would really appreciate.

The premise behind the feature is software control for monitoring. It provides a set of options for selecting monitors, creating cue mixes, and managing how it's all used. Studio One can definitely benefit from a similar feature set.

Let's imagine I have an interface--any interface--that gives me four pairs of analog outputs and four pairs of digital outputs, plus some number of inputs for recording or external sound sources (iPhone, artist's laptop, etc.). I have two pairs of monitors, and a headphone amp at the mixing desk. I connect the monitors/amps to my first two pairs of outputs, I leave one pair open for things like re-amping, and I connect the final pair to my headphone amp. I also use ADAT to connect the four digital pairs to a DAC I'll use to feed headphone amps in my live room.

Now, I need some way to control all of that from the computer, since my DAW is my console.

First, there would need to be a way to tell S1 what outputs are what. So in the Audio I/O Setup grids, you could specify that certain inputs and outputs are Aux In 1, Aux In 2, or Monitor A, B, C, or D, or Cue Outputs, or Headphones. That way the outputs are well defined and can be dedicated to their intended purposes. If you needed to route a channel directly to the monitors, instead of going through the Main Bus, you could route it to "Monitors" as opposed to "Main". And speaking of...

In S1, there could be a panel the size of the Record panel below the edit, mix, or arrange views, in which you can easily fit controls for monitor switching (A, B, C, etc.), monitor source selection (Main, Aux 1, Aux 2, etc.), and monitoring level that's separate from the main fader. Next to that, buttons for dim (and its level), mute, mono, side image solo, channel swap, and even "dim solo"/"listen" mode toggling. In addition, a Talkback section, and a headphones section with its own level that uses many of the same options as the monitors.

Then, as maybe a separate channel type in the console's Outputs view, there could be options on the appropriate outputs for the Cue mixes for things like PFL/AFL and Click send level, while in the main console view, Cue sends are distinguished from normal PFL/AFL sends better than just being permanently visible above the channel I/O. A pop-up menu below/next to the Track List could let you select a Cue mix for Sends On Fader. Output faders could act as output trims. And of course, what makes Cubase's Control Room so cool:

On all the outputs, an insert rack for plugins! So EQ and limiting could be on the Cue mixes, while each of my sets of monitors could have their own instances of Sonarworks Reference loaded up, and I wouldn't need to worry about bypassing them all before exporting a mix.

There's lots of engineers using digital mixing consoles as their studio interfaces. Sure, they have similar-ish routing available within, but without mapping every channel's output in the DAW to a fader on the mixer, you don't get quite the cue mix capability from the hardware you do from the software. Having these options in the box would make even AudioBox VSL-sized setups complete, 100% solutions for a recording/mixing studio. Kind of what comes to mind when I hear "Studio One."

I think this feature set would go a whole lot further than the features in VSL did, especially with Native Zero Latency Monitoring technology in S1.

Answer 1

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Answer 2

I cant believe this doesnt get more votes. I have worked with Cubase for a very long time, and this is the only thing I am really missing. Setting up things like correction plugins, headphone speaker simulations and whatever without affecting the render is a big bonus in workflow. To that you can hook up external hardware in a fly. I really miss this.

Answer 3

Please vote.
Would make me use studio one in big studios and could replace cubase.

Answer 4

we really need this. setting up hardware and such is better. but the main reason for me ist integrating correction software. you could specify which channel gets what correction. each set of monitors could run a different measurement, no need to change when switching monitors and no need to disable it during rendering. you could have headphone correction or simulation software and so on and so on. this is one of the two features I am missing since leaving cubase. this and the hardware integration

Answer 5

I agree. Something like this needs to be added to make Studio One a truly professional product. Currently my template has a complicated bussing system so I can have two monitor outputs and a headphone output each with their own 'room correction' software settings. Plus another intermediate bus for metering and reference comparison.

The other huge problem is that this cannot be replicated on the Project (mastering) page as you can't create busses. So I have to master using a 'song'.

A control room (or something that does the same thing) needs to be added to both Songs and Projects.

Answer 6

I am either on another page to you all or I totally do not understand what you are attempting to achieve, I have used Cubase for many years and there is absolutely nothing that I cannot do with studio One that was provided by the Control Room. In fact I found it more of a hinderance than a help..

I am able using Studio One to do everything that Cubase Control room offered in a fraction of the time and all through one pair of speakers. I have 3 dedicated outputs through which I can route anything from one track to a complete mix. I can playback anyone of them through the same set of speakers, even at the same time if I want to get fancy, but that is due to them all being linked to the same set of speakers.

Routing to external hardware, i don't see any issue here, i do it all the time. Obviously in real time. I'm only limited by the number of outputs and returns that I have. None of it though is controlled by software. It is purely entirely routing from within Studio One.

I have no latency issues with Studio One. Hardware is ~0 though I must admit that virtual instruments are somewhat higher at 17ms, but that is not a problem if setup correctly. It can be virtually eliminated. And is of no concern upon mix down. So obviously I must have missed the pointed somewhere along the line.

Answer 7

I'm a Cubase user, currently demoing Studio One and the Control Room is the number one feature i'm missing in any DAW.
There are some things that are not that easy to do in any other DAW:
1. You can have a keybind to your talkback in the Control Room and can easily toggle it on/off.
2. You can switch between sending either the corresponding cue mix or your main mix to the cue outs with a press of a button.
3. Solo tracks via the listenbus without affecting the the cue mix or the main mix (this is pretty important if your main mix is routed to a cue out too ;).
4. You can listen to what ever you're sending out of the cues with a click of a button.

I do alot of live off the floor recording of bands in my studio, 24 tracks with fx monitored through Cubase, no need for a mixingdesk and no need to touch the lowlatency mixer of my RME HDSPe either. I absolutely need the ability to check for instance the snare bottom mic while everybody is playing or to listen to the headphone mix of one of the players with a click of a button, while the session keeps going on.

As far as i can tell there is no way to easily replicate my setup/workflow with Studio One?

I'd love to switch to Studio One as the handling of Cubase got really clunky and inconsistent, the window handling is awful and there was massive drop in low latency performance when they introduced version 9.5. that they never fixed.

Answer 8

I'm adding my vote for the addition of this feature. This YouTube video does a great job summarizing the advantages in the Cubase Control Room.

Answer 9

The "Listen Bus" feature in Studio One 5 is only a small part of what this feature request is about. The current implementation of the "Listen Bus" only applies to Songs, not Shows or even Projects! I can hardly believe that. There's another FR on the site specifically just for that.

Like I said to begin with, and like everyone below this, this featureset needs to be implemented thoughout the entirety of Studio One, or it's only a half-measure. In the current state, the Project page is useless for anyone using room correction plugins, because none of the monitoring is correct when the plugin is enabled. That's asinine.

I still want PreSonus to consider this FR in full, not just as a way to make Sonarworks work a little better. A whole "master section" solution would make this a killer recording DAW. Think about the ways people actually use software like this. That's important. Otherwise, your users are likely to go where the features are thought out with greater attention to detail.

Answer 10

Yes! Please make the listen bus like Cubase's!!!!!!!

Answer 11

One listen bus is a first step in the right direction. We would need multiple listen buses or a control room like in cubase. Those who dont know it should go check it out. Its the only feature I really really miss from cubase.

Answer 12

This would be such an amazing workflow improvement to Studio One. It is the main thing preventing me from moving from Cubase. Please add it.

Answer 13

A friend recently showed me why he prefers to work with Cubase rather than Studio One. And as he showed me that Cubase Control Room I was really fond of and at the same time wondered why it is not implemented in S1 (and any other DAW out there) because it seems like such a really basic feature.
I never noticed because I can do excactly that on hardware with my Audient ID14, but if I couldnt do that it would be a good reason to switch to Cubase, although I prefer the easy drag and drop workflow of S1.
So please Presonus, just copy and paste Cubase's Control Room... Done!

Thanks

PS: I REALLY wonder why there are not like 1000s of upvote for this. Maybe people just havent seen how handy that Control Room can be and are not aware that it exists.

Answer 14

Yes we need more than 1 listen bus. now there is 5.5 come and still only 1 listen bus and all new features i need not. no midi plugins in instruments possible and only one listen bus. for headphone correction there is tone booster morphit so even when have only 1 speaker the headphone can also correct to sound better. so need at least 2 listen bus. also i did not see how i can mute this easy. when i go with the mouse over the L, bubble help show "listen activ". but i cannot mute it. i change the output to mute and reselect to enable headphone

Answer 15

I'm hopeful this will happen.  They made a video promoting sonarworks and their listen bus.  As more and more people use software correction not only for speakers but also for their headphones, I think they will have to give us more output options like multiple discrete listen bus.  I had no idea this was not possible in S1.  I came from another daw where I could assign as many parallel discrete outputs as my physical outputs would allow.

I love you Studio One!

Answer 16

Adding one listen bus is a step in the right direction, but it's very limited. I still have to use a hacky system of bus routings that I came up with to simulate multiple listen busses. I can't use the single listen bus feature they added.

The control room is the only thing I miss about Cubase. Adding something as functional as that to Studio One would really bring it up to professional level. At the moment it's only home-studio level.