Question

I'm new to Studio One. I'm running on Windows 10 Pro 64bit. Have been using Reaper prior with only an outboard stereo mixer to PC. Finally got the 1824C and purchased Sphere. I'm having a hard time getting my headphone mix balanced and it seems WAY off. I'm testing it out and I am recording some dialogue with a Shure BETA. I have the input levels set to around -6 to -9. Good there. But I have to turn my headphone volume almost to max to get it at a decent level for both monitoring and playback of the recorded dialogue. OK, maybe just weak headphone amps

I am using the default routing that Studio One set up from my interface.

 I decided to bring in the Mai Tie to check that out and that and see how that sounds. Well I hit a note and it is wicked loud. Like so loud it hurts! So I've discovered that the headphone amps have a good amount of headroom but only on the Virtual Instrument? So I compare where the Mai Tie is registering on the fader and it is registering at like -12 or so which is lower that my monitored mic AND the playback of my recorded dialogue which sits around -6 to -9. Even though the volume registering is still quite a bit lower than what my recorded dialogue is registering it is still WAY louder in the mix. I have to turn the fader almost all the way down to balance it. I am having the same problem with the metronome actually peaking out the mains. Like so much it is distorting.

What is going on? What am I missing. Why is the internal sounds so much louder in the headphone 1 mix than anything else going on. I mean I can barely hear my mic input and the recorded Mic unless cranked. I'm not new to recording but am new to studio one. I run live sound and record my friends band in his basement using the ********* X-air 18 into Reaper and have none of these issues. And didn't have any issues with Reaper on my prior setup. I know my input levels are good so why such a difference? I didn't think this would be this difficult. It should just be plug and play and am out of ideas.  Sorry so long... Thanks for reading!

EDIT: Is somehow the Universal Controller Summing/Doubling some stuff and not others?

Answer 1

UPDATE: I deleted all the prepopulated inputs and outputs that Presonus set up by selecting my interface. I also bypassed the Universal control. I also don't use the listen bus so i removed its sends. It seems much better now. I'm guessing the universal control was doubling a signal somewhere. Like going out the mains and some other monitoring source. Kind of annoying to have that be a default thing. I don't use UC at the moment so I just disabled it. Some day I will dive into UC and figure out where the problem was. But for now I'm happy to not have to deal with that.