Questions & Answers

Studio Monitoring

+119 votes
1,819 views
asked Dec 4, 2015 in Studio One Feature Requests by LMike (14,690 points)

Studio One's monitoring facilities are quite limited.   Below is one example of how studio monitoring should probably work, using Ardour 4.   Thanks for reading or voting.

Solo In Place

What you see below  is a channel in solo and in the "Solo in Place" mode and it behaves like S1 and most other daws, it mutes everything else, including the send from channel 1 that's feeding headphones.  One other thing to notice there is that muting doesn't stop any metering...

AFL/PFL
If you switch to AFL or PFL it behaves differently.   Solo still solos the signal but it doesn't mute anything so my cue feed to Phones 1 is still going.  So in that regard, I can solo signals pre or post fader / FX in the mains - while recording - to isolate things in the mains, without interrupting the cue sends to performers.

Building A Cue Mix
Below what you see happening is me soloing that cue, "Phones 1" (assume it's feeding a hardware output).   Take note that it doesn't stop anything else from playing but I can hear that mix in the main monitors directly while adjusting that cue mix.   Also, take note that I added another cue "Phones 2" to help illustrate that soloing the Phones 1 bus to adjust that mix in the mains doesn't interrupt other cues.

So to adjust the Bass players mix, I solo that bus and adjust sends across the mixer to it, and hear your adjustments directly as I go.   Take note that the main meters aren't showing the solo channel signal alone, it's still metering the full main mix.   The soloed signal is being bussed directly to the mains...

 

commented Dec 5, 2015 by arndkaiser (2,300 points)
Excellent description. Thanks.

8 Answers

+5 votes
answered Dec 4, 2015 by AlexTinsley (925,070 points)
LMike, thanks for the detail. This is how a feature request is written.

If anyone else agrees with the feature request, please vote it up.
+9 votes
answered Dec 8, 2015 by chancekaye (3,320 points)
If the SOLO feature is going to be improved, I'd like to see "exclusive solo" and "diminished solo" modes added as well.
+5 votes
answered Dec 7, 2016 by boriskreuer (900 points)
I fully agree. I´d liked to write a feature request for this a few minutes ago. Thank you LMike for that perfect describtion.

Primarily I´m a livesound engineer, I am used to push the Solo button on various mixing consoles anytime, without thinking about what could happen - but when I switch to a recording situation with S1 standalone, all I can think about is "Don´t push the Solo". I really love S1, but this is a ****.

Also, I´m longly thinking about using S1 as a live mixing extension (for FX-Channels etc. or standalone with an Interface for some small  live jobs (yes, I do trust in the stability of the programm) - the impossibility of using the Solo is that unsurmountable barrier for me.

As a programming workaround, it should be relativly easy to use a hidden send, which is triggered by the solo-Button.

Additionally the sound engineer can use his/her favorite plugins for room compensation or HRTF-Simulation for headphones on the monitoring bus, without the need of switching them off during the mixbounce-process.
+3 votes
answered May 5, 2018 by cristiandolha (1,380 points)
Here-here!..

Wonder how many more versions of S1 will come and go before this (arguably crucial?) feature will finally get implemented. Surely it can't be THAT difficult, right?

Then again, this has "only" been up for almost two and a half years (since the days of 3.0.1)...
+3 votes
answered May 22, 2018 by cristiandolha (1,380 points)
I haven't seen anything mentioned about this in the "what's new" page for version 4, so... i guess it's safe to assume this STILL hasn't been changed / implemented?
+2 votes
answered May 23, 2018 by mikesupina (6,380 points)
Please add this Studio One! This is crazy that this isn't a thing. Not to offend anyone when I say this, but It's as if this DAW was created as a bedroom loop builders DAW and not a professional DAW. Gotta get implemented. Would you just blow pro tools out of the water already?
+1 vote
answered Nov 15, 2018 by LaurynasG (1,280 points)
With some slots for metering, room correction plugins that do not export in to mixdown master file. This feature is really handy not only for mixing but recording and mastering to. Thumbs up!
0 votes
answered Jan 29, 2020 by hanneshaindl (330 points)
This! ...or implement a listenbus and a control room like in cubase ;)
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