Pro vs. Normal mode - audio path

One of the menu options in Solocontutti is "Pro Mode".  Since Solocontutti is designed to be very easy to use the basic interface keeps things down to a minimum and fairly intuitive. Also there are quite a few users who are using accessibility features, so you don't want to clutter up the space with loads of buttons and switches, as you will see on much audio software. 

For the user who wants more control over how the sound is managed, there is pro mode. This is the first of a series of posts discussing pro mode and how you can use the features. This article is about the audio path.

So what exactly do I mean by audio path? Basically Solocontutti takes a number of inputs from various sources and sends processed sounds to three destinations: your headphones, other players on the internet and recordings. We'll ignore recordings for the moment, as this is the subject of another article.

The audio path is shown in the  diagram below:

Inputs

Let's look at the inputs in detail:

• There are two inputs that come into your interface. These could be microphones, instruments, or the inbuilt microphone of your device. Note that in some cases these devices have their own volume controls which you will need to adjust as the first element in   the path.
• Next you can have input from the plugin. This could come from just about anywhere and will probably have a whole range of characteristics that you can adjust. This goes directly into Solocontutti and bypasses your device
• Finally there are the audio feeds from the other players which also go directly to Solocontutti and bypass your device. You have no control over what comes in, but you can modify it as Solocontutti processes the audio

Outputs

On the output side we have

• Headphones - this is the mix of various sources that Solocontutti will process
• Internet - this is a processed mix that Solocontutti sends out to other players in the session

One of the crucial differences in pro mode is the way that monitoring is handled. If you monitor your instrument through Solocontutti, then what you hear in normal mode is the same as what will be sent to other players over the internet. This could be volume (you may want to hear yourself a little louder) or positioning in the virtual space. Another way of saying this is that in normal mode you have controls to modify the input for your input devices whereas in pro mode you can also modify your monitor output separately.

One of the first things that you see is that the controls on the input panel change - the monitor button disappears and is replaced by a gate. In pro mode you will be controlling the monitored audio through the input controls.

The input control will process the audio input. You can control the gain, and by splitting the controls you can control each channel separately. This means that you can attach and control up to 4 mono devices. The audio input is directed both to the audio output controls (for monitoring) and to the mixer that sends the signal out to other players. No further processing happens on this signal before it is transmitted. You can see this in the block diagram below.

In standard mode this output is also what goes to your headphones and any recording that is  in progress, if you are using the monitor function. In Pro mode this output then goes to the output control for your inputs.

The "gate" function uses a gate filter to ensure that when there is nothing playing on the channel, background noise will not be transmitted. If the channel goes below a given dB level (this can be configure in the settings page) then the channel is muted.

The output control will first handle the gain controls and then any filters you have applied to the signal. It will then pan the signal as required.pan the signal as required. Panning  is the process of changing the position of the signal in the stereo image. Note that panning still works when you split the controls into two channels and the panner will treat the two channels as a stereo signal.

This is the basic audio path for pro mode and allows a lot of flexibility in how you control both what you send to other players and how you monitor your own performance. 

The mixer controls for incoming audio from the internet do not vary so much from normal to pro mode. The key differences are that in pro mode the mixers gain the ability to add effects and an individual mute control.

Note that after all the individual inputs (including backing track and plugin) have been mixed, you can apply an additional gain control with the master output.

Calibration

One of the irritating parts of setting up an audio path is calibrating all of the different gain controls along the way. In the most complex case you will have to deal with:

• An output gain control on your instrument
• Per channel input gain controls on your interface
• A master input gain control on your interface
• A master input gain control on your device
• An input gain control on Solocontutti
• An output gain control on Solocontutti
• A master output gain control on Solocontutti
• A master output gain control on your device
• A headphone gain control on your interface

This is of course an extreme case, but it is coincidentally the set up that I use regularly.

So here is how to set up the audio path for best results. The idea is to set up each element so that you get a reasonably high volume, without clipping:

• If you have a volume control open your instrument, set it to your normal level
• Start up Solocontutti in non-pro mode and set the input gain to 0, the boost off, and the monitor on. Set the master volume to about 6 or 7 notches less than the maximum
• If you have a headphone output control on your device, set it to your normal listening levels.
• If you have a gain control on your input device, set it to as high as it can go without clipping on very loud sounds.
• The set the Solocontutti input control as high as it will go, without clipping on loud sounds. You may have to use the boost.
• Go into Pro mode and set monitoring on. Set the output gain to a level that you would like to hear the instrument. If this is not loud enough, you can modify the master volume or the gain control on the headphone output.

When you are connected to a session you will then have to adjust the gain for each of the other players in the session. 

There is an explanation of most of the above mentioned functions on the Youtube channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myQo05MF8c0