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Originally Posted by awediohead  I got my Zed R16 a couple of days ago and it has required a major re-think of how I have my studio set up. Being much more familiar with straightforward audio interfaces (such as my FF800) and being pretty unfamiliar with desks in general, I'd welcome some advice on setting things up. . . .
1) I have nearfield monitors (Adam A7's), some (deliberately) crappy PC speakers and a couple of Opera 415's. The 415's we use for rehearsal /practice with keyboards, V-drums and bass going through them. Previously I had these set up with a Presonus Monitor Station for different speaker options and also the four headphone outs with Main and Cue mixes.
Clearly the R16 shares many of the Monitor Station's features - (and I'm wondering whether to sell it ?) . . . but having the four headphone outs with different source options, will be still be very useful I think. Also because its a dedicated unit its very quick and simple to select the various options compared to the R16 - though I'm sure this will change as I wrap my head around it over the next few weeks!
I'm thinking of maybe using the R16's Studio Outs 1 & 2 to feed the Monitor Station's Stereo 1 & 2, while using the R16's Control Room Monitors (CRM) for the A7's and the 2 Track 1 Outs for the Opera 415's - on the basis that the Opera's are only ever actually switched on for rehearsals. My idea here is to use the Monitor Station just as a headphone "mixer" on the basis that running the main mix stereo signal through it is less than ideal given it doesn't have passive circuitry . . . mind you I've never noticed any problem, I'm just going on what I understand might lead to a loss of imaging etc in theory.
thoughts anyone?
2) Secondly I still have my Fireface - and please forgive if this is a dumb question, but I was wondering about how it might be usefully integrated with the R16? Specifically I was thinking about how useful it might be to have A->D for the four AUX outs on the R16?
I'm probably just trying to dream up reasons to hang on to a much loved bit of gear!
Sorry this is so long - hope somebody here can remember the first time they looked at a desk and felt their brain melt!!
cheers |
Hi awediohead,
like lovekrafty I kept my monitor controller, im my case because of the logistics of my studio - I don't work with the boards in front of me. I also use a separate headphone amplifier connected to the Studio 1 output to send cue mixes to the recording room.
I would keep the FF800 because
1) its always an excellent idea to have a backup audio interface.
2) it can be easily configured to give you an extra 8 channels of i/o via adat. You might not need them now, but you never know. You can monitor the inputs and outputs without latency from the headphone/ line out (channels 9/10) or with a little modification from the spdif out. The outputs could go into the R-16's ST inputs. You could feed the inputs directly, or from a patchbay, or as you say from the aux outputs , in which case you could set up four busses of effects in your daw (two would be pre fade) and treat them as real outboard, feeding signals from the mixer. Or have the FF800 connected to a reel to reel multitrack in order to send it drums and other sounds that can benefit from the tape treatment, and back into the DAW... the possibilities are (almost) endless!
Hope this helps
MW