I've been using the Studio 68c for a few years, and the most frequent thing I touch on the front panel is the MON button to toggle hardware input monitoring. I find it so useful, especially when singing, or when testing out the connection to a hardware device.
Unless I have missed it, the Quantum HD8 has no such button or control in any of the menus. I do see that there is a channel level fader and channel mute/solo buttons in the Universal Control Mixer app (excellent news!) but I really don't want to open two nested software apps just to toggle hardware monitoring, especially when i am on the other side of the room trying to plug in gear.
Perhaps this could be fixed in the next firmware update?
There's a couple of implementations that could work here
- Add a whole new page attached to the input buttons. Hit the button once to show and set input gain level (current behaviour), hit it again to set the channel output level. (Bonus, put the mute solo buttons in a menu similar to the existing the input phantom power and low cut.)
- Simply add a mute/unmute setting in the existing menu, below phantom power and low cut
- Hold main and press the desired input button to toggle channel mute on/off
- Or hold the desired input button and press mute button to toggle channel mute on off.
- Hold down desired input button and move the main knob to set channel output level (currently you can set the input gain while holding the button - seems to behave exactly like pressing and releasing the button)
I'm sure there are other ways too.
And, maybe we can make the main knob LED ring a different color when setting these. There could also be a page for the main LCD screen showing the output levels and mute/solo states. TBH this would be fantastic in standalone mode, turning this interface into a true digital mixer.
What do you all think?
Chris
(copied and edited from my forum post at the behest of customer support)