That's the spirit!
Incidentally, today has been a bit of a bust.
What with Covid, the DJing was probably going to be scuppered in the foreseeable future anyway, but after a year of no parties … and no real end in sight … it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that things will never be the same … and, fun though things were, I just don’t fancy a return the gas-mask fashion of the early 1990s — I didn’t wear one when there was no reason not to take it off after a ten minutes, so I’m not gonna be comfortable dancing in one for 96 hours, am I?
So, I’ve been rebuilding the studio, with a view to pivoting from DJ-cum-occasional-collaborator to full-on producer.
I’m still waiting on a new MIDI keyboard/controller to arrive, but I can still get o with stuff without it in the meantime.
I’m also waiting on a few cables to wire up two sets of hifi-speakers for comparison purposes and to route the signal from the audio interface/breakout box to the amp … and also to a separate hardware mixer — circumstances being what they currently are, I don’t have the room for the studio kit, DJ mixer, CDJ Decks, six games consoles, Blu-ray player amplifier, multiple speakers and whatever else I’ve forgotten all in the same room all wired up into one, seamless whole, but … I can always run a cable from the other room where the Blu-ray player and one of the games consoles are to be found, so the studio mixer might come in handy and, as it’s a small 4+4/2 unit, I’ve got the space for it, so might as well use it.
So, I’m waiting for the cables to arrive, so I can wire up the amp/speakers before I wire up the near-/mid-field monitors, because, once I’’ve done so, I won’t be able to get behind the desk/table to do any further wiring/connecting without moving one of them again … and once I’ve calibrated them for the room, I don’t want to have to do it again — no matter that, theoretically, recalibrating them will make it all good again, things just won’t sound the same again and it’ll throw me.
In the meantime, I’ve been doing what I can though, making sure everything works and all the connections are good and … so far … they are good.
Until today, that is, when someone sent me something they are working on to listen to and I discovered a driver/routing problem.
In my DAW, I can send individual sources wherever I like, group them, submix them, send them, return them, route the returned signal to another submix going to another output group, you get the idea.
By default, the first two ADAT streams on my audio interface are also the Master channel … going via optical connection to my breakout box and then out via two TRS cables, which I’ve cabled up to a passive attenuator with rotary dial and mute button before forwarding it on to the near/mid-field speaker-monitors. I’ve tested it with my headphones and it’s all good.
I’ve then plugged my headphones into the third and fourth ports on the breakout box and use a SEND to route sources/(sub)mixes to the ADAT 3/4 stream routed to the corresponding ports on the breakout box, so that I can monitor things independently of the speaker-monitors.
So far so good.
ADAT 5/6 will go to the amp.
ADAT 7/8 will go to whatever external device chain I want to use (currently a KAOSS PAD, but it could eventually contain any number of compressors, reverbs, delays, whathaveyou) and/or the hardware mixer.
So … all told, so far so pretty good.
Well, I didn’t want to fire up the DAW just to listen to wav bouncedown, so I quickly launched VLC Player.
I couldn’t hear a thing on the headphones though — and it wasn’t because I’d forgotten to power up the breakout box … nor because there was no signal (I could see the signal going to 1/2).
I couldn’t access the individual ADAT streams from the settings though, which was weird — I can in my DAW.
So, I tried a few other apps, including (in utter desperation) Windows Media Player.
And none of them, will let me route the signal anywhere but 1/2.
I can open the control panel for the audio interface and set the gain/panning for each independent ADAT channel/stream, but I can’t do so in Windows’ system settings — it’s 1/2 all or nothing, like I were using the audio interface in TOSLink mode, whereas I flashed the ADAT firmware to the audio interface yesterday, changing it from the default TOSLink setup (since when, in my DAW at least, it has allowed me to use all eight ADAT streams/channels instead of the default two).
So, I can’t control things from any app that doesn’t play nicely with the driver (which, apparently, includes Windows itself!).
Which is pretty annoying … because I can’t audition stuff, or listen to anything on the Web unless I route it to my near-/mid-field monitors … so, I can’t listen to any music, synth demos, sample packs … anything … after 20:00 because I don’t want to upset the neighbours.
So, yeah … I have, as it happens, had a bit of a fucked up day — your wish came true before you even knew you wanted to make it!
