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Old 10-03-2014, 06:05 AM   #25
planetnine
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Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Lincoln, UK
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I think you need to get familiar with the routing matrix and how it relates to your channels, your sends and hardware outputs. This will help you get a picture in your mind of the routing, and what JP (above) is saying will make perfect sense.

If you're sending a REAPER track directly to a hardware out (eg here your valve channels) you will need to adjust the send levels to their working range. Looking at those in the manual, I would press the AFL (after-fade listen as opposed to pre-fade listen), start with the "level" pot (effectively your fader for this channel) at 0dB and the drive at minimum and slowly bring up the REAPER send until the desk meters are bouncing up to 0dB. With the level pot gain at 0dB, you are effectively trimming the pre-fade level to a 0VU (here 0dBu, I think) nominal.

If the "drive" control on these channels is not gain compensated, you'll have to do the above with the drive knob somewhere in the middle of its range. The valve drive circuit has a green/yellow/red indicator, so you'll know how hard you are hitting it, but I bet AFL with the level pot at 0dB and drive at minimum will give you a 0dBu nominal level (after the channel DAC) into the channel -if the drive light is green we'll presume it's doing nothin to the through channel gain.

Does the actual level increase dramatically as you turn the drive up Sean?

You are having a possibly unfair and rough introduction to the difference between levels used in mixing (esp analogue) and off-the-shelf 0dBFSD-normalised music. That desk will, to a degree, make you work at a much lower digital level than many in-the-box bedroom mixing guys do. It's good practice, but it will mean you need some gain on your monitors and you will get very familiar with that crimson knob on page 26 (CRM LEVEL)

Persevere with it, it's a well thought-out console for REAPER. Before you know it you'll be familiar, and you'll be programming all those knobs and buttons to control your transport and recording.



Edit: I take it you're ok with those ABCD DAW routing buttons?

"The Gain control does not affect the signal if the input is sourced from the DAW interface." Leave it at 0dB anyway, and...

"Drive control characteristics at around +10dBu." Hit AFL and trim from the REAPER hardware sends, aim for anywhere between 0dB and +10dB on the console meters. Use your ears and adust it to taste




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Last edited by planetnine; 10-03-2014 at 06:11 AM.
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