Here's how I'm mastering- have a question

[steelyfan]

Howdy folks, Steely here. I'm usually over at the "so much" forum carrying on and what not. I have a couple things I'm trying out and would like your .02 . Here's what I'm doing.

I've recently purchased an AKAI DPS24 to use as my main recorder. Love it, and I'm wanting to get my music over from my PC (I've used cubase exclusively for the last 7 years) to the Akai. Upon doing this, I've decided to use this as a reason to master my older material, giving it one last listen/tweak and putting the finishing "ENERGY" on it. This is how I'm doing it.

1> I'm sending my L @ R stereo mix (out of cubase) to the main monitors outputs on the back of a Presnous Firepod (where I would normally hook up my monitoring speakers.

2> this is sent to two MONO channels on my Ramsa 24 channel board. I'm using the e.q./ pres/ on the board and hard panning left and right sending these OUT through Aux 2 and Aux3 (hard panned left and right) on the board........

3> ...into TWO inserts channels 1 and 2 (hard panned and bypassing the Akai's pres) on my Akai DPS24. I'm monitoring on the Akai and recording this final mix as my master. I will introduce a stereo Hardware compressor into this setup before the Akai after I solve this mystery.

When I hard pan left in cubase from the the stereo master, the music is not coming through, but hard panning right, I can still hear the music and it sounds like I'm hearing the proper right channels tracks. I'm thinking I should only hear the left or right channel when hard panning from the main stereo mix. When I have stereo mix in the middle from Cubase, it sounds perfect, hard panned left and the music goes away, right panned I can still hear the right channel??


What's up with this? Here's some possible reasons I've come up with.

1> I'm using mono guitar cables for all patching of equipment
2> I need to send those tracks out of my Ramsa's stereo master instead of the 2 auxs', regardless of panning.
3> do I need to set up mono outputs from cubase?

Oh, and while I'm here, what type of cables do you recommend for this type of setup? I really like the results I'm getting, just don't understand where my left channel is going when panned.

Thanks for any suggestions and tips. Would be much appreciated.
Have a great day,
Steelyfan

[It'sJoeAgain]

i don' think this is a *mastering* question but more like a connection issue....have you checked your cables? Are they all TRS?? Some mixing desks use TRS connectors for the effects send/returns as well.........

[masterizer]

Originally Posted by steelyfan

Howdy folks, Steely here. I'm usually over at the "so much" forum carrying on and what not. I have a couple things I'm trying out and would like your .02 . Here's what I'm doing.

I've recently purchased an AKAI DPS24 to use as my main recorder. Love it, and I'm wanting to get my music over from my PC (I've used cubase exclusively for the last 7 years) to the Akai. Upon doing this, I've decided to use this as a reason to master my older material, giving it one last listen/tweak and putting the finishing "ENERGY" on it. This is how I'm doing it.

1> I'm sending my L @ R stereo mix (out of cubase) to the main monitors outputs on the back of a Presnous Firepod (where I would normally hook up my monitoring speakers.

2> this is sent to two MONO channels on my Ramsa 24 channel board. I'm using the e.q./ pres/ on the board and hard panning left and right sending these OUT through Aux 2 and Aux3 (hard panned left and right) on the board........

3> ...into TWO inserts channels 1 and 2 (hard panned and bypassing the Akai's pres) on my Akai DPS24. I'm monitoring on the Akai and recording this final mix as my master. I will introduce a stereo Hardware compressor into this setup before the Akai after I solve this mystery.

When I hard pan left in cubase from the the stereo master, the music is not coming through, but hard panning right, I can still hear the music and it sounds like I'm hearing the proper right channels tracks. I'm thinking I should only hear the left or right channel when hard panning from the main stereo mix. When I have stereo mix in the middle from Cubase, it sounds perfect, hard panned left and the music goes away, right panned I can still hear the right channel??


What's up with this? Here's some possible reasons I've come up with.

1> I'm using mono guitar cables for all patching of equipment
2> I need to send those tracks out of my Ramsa's stereo master instead of the 2 auxs', regardless of panning.
3> do I need to set up mono outputs from cubase?

Oh, and while I'm here, what type of cables do you recommend for this type of setup? I really like the results I'm getting, just don't understand where my left channel is going when panned.

Thanks for any suggestions and tips. Would be much appreciated.
Have a great day,
Steelyfan

Using guitar cables to patch your equipment is one problem, I've heard similar things happen to people using sonar. It may have something to do with the drivers or the I/O in cubase.

I would first try TRS patch cables, then check the I/O (maybe try another channel), then check the drivers. Also search for this in threads because it is likely the same or similar thing happened to someone else.

[steelyfan]

Silly me. I went home for lunch to look at it again, I was still sending a little of channel 1 and 2 from my mixer to each channel, so that solves that. But now my signals are flipped. I've almost got it dialed in!

[steelyfan]

yes, I knew I wasn't crazy. Here's the solution and here was the problem:

My board is set up to have a 4 buss routing system, BUT.... they are set up as numbers 1 and 2 go out Left and 3 and 4 Right. Duhh....

Since I was using tracks 1 and 2 on the mixer and routing them out to the Akai's inputs 1 and 2, I wanted to keep it simple and logical by using Aux's 1 and 2 on my Ramsa board, a simple flow. See why that wasn't working? LOL. That's why I could still hear it when hard panned.. ah hAA!

So I'm using aux's 1 and 3 now, got my left and right stereo image correct.

Steely