Here's the deal: I just bought a new set of active monitors, and am using them to listen to my mixes straight out of my MOTU 828mk2 (IE no Big Knob, or CS...) As I understand it, there are 3 places in which my audio goes through amplification/attenuation, in order:
1) In the box, as in, through my master fader in DP
2) The "Main Out" Volume Knob on my 828]
3) The individual "gain" knobs on the amplifier section of my powered monitors.
My question is essentially this: how should i gain-stage in this situation? What do you do? I'd rather leave my master fader at unity. Should I crank the monitors to their loudest setting, and use the 828's master out to attenuate the signal? Or does it make more sense to crank the 828 to 0dB, and calibrate the monitor gain using a SPL meter? Does 0dB on the 828's main outs=Unity gain? Or do I risk the possibility of overloading the analog stage (and further coloring my audio) in the 828 by setting the main out to 0dB? I guess it depends on the level I am feeding it out of the DAW...
Gain staging w/ 828mk2
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Discussion related to installation, configuration and use of MOTU hardware such as MIDI interfaces, audio interfaces, etc. for Mac OSX
Discussion related to installation, configuration and use of MOTU hardware such as MIDI interfaces, audio interfaces, etc. for Mac OSX
Gain staging w/ 828mk2
why would i want to skin a cat?
0db on the motu is unity gain; I think that when you turn it down all it does is digitally reduce the gain rather than turn down an analog amp. Not totally sure about this though. As for your main question I personally would deal with volume with the monitors or the knob on the 828 and not in the DAW so as to have consistency if you listen on a different setup or with phones.