DP-32SD - mono/stereo signal sends to external stereo device

[David Porter]

So, I recently touched on this in my "man, am I rusty" thread. I thought I had a handle on this - but I'm revisiting this after being away from my recording area for a couple of weeks and after watching the Tipping tutorial 6C - I'm pretty sure that this is not working the way I was hoping.

Here's what I'm hoping to accomplish:

I want to send an already-recorded single mono track and an already-recorded single stereo track out through the sends and into an external stereo mastering processor (TC Electronic) and return it back to a stereo pair while maintaining the *track source* stereo field position of the original tracks.

I found that:

a) to send the mono track out - in order to keep it in the center - it has to go out both sends 1 AND 2 at equal levels, and that...

b) (according to Tipping Tutorial 6C) the stereo track gets forced to mono when sending it out on either send 1 or 2. In Tipping tutorial 6B he mentions at about 3:00 that you can send stereo signals out through sends 1 & 2 to an external stereo device - but I'm pretty sure he's talking about inputs as they relate to using the machine as a stereo mixer... and/or my next point---->

Tutorial 6C does demonstrate that if the stereo source is on two mono tracks you can simply use the pan controls of those two tracks and send the left-panned track out on send 1 and the right-panned track out on send 2 and... voila.

But what if, hypothetically, I don't have any spare mono tracks? I'm working on a new project now that will put me in this situation.

Am I missing anything... or is there a work around? It's unclear to me if this is even possible.

Any feedback is appreciated.

 

[Phil Tipping]

Hi David, apologies for the confusion!
The main points are:
1. The pan controls are not in the Send paths, so they have no effect on mono or stereo tracks (or inputs)... it's that block diagram again
2. The send signal from a stereo track is summed to mono for both Send-1 and Send-2.
3. If you're using Send-1 as the left side for a 'stereo send', and Send-2 as the right, the tracks you use for those send signals must equate to the left & right sides.

So you're right re. mono tracks; you must send (tap off) the same amount of signal to both send-1 and send-2 in order to keep it 'central'.
You're also right re. the tutorial referring to inputs for sending to send-1 and send-2. All inputs are mono so they're equivalent to mono tracks.

It's harder with stereo tracks as you have to re-separate the left & right sides somehow. I can't think of an easy way to do this apart from converting the track to two monos and then use send-1 for one and send-2 for the other. A relatively quick way of converting is to export both left & right sides, then import them to separate mono tracks.... and if you run out of mono tracks, the virtual tracks may help.

 

[David Porter]

Thanks for the clarity Phil.

I think I'll start to warm up to experimenting with the on-board mastering effects. After all, while the TC Electronic Finalizer is a nice unit - not every mix sounds great through it.

Another related question... to Phil or anyone else:

Is there anything keeping me from sending my stereo mix out the "stereo out", through an external processor, and back to any two inputs?

 

[Mark Richards]

Hi David. If I'm understanding correctly, In Multitrack mode, you want to send a stereo signal to an external stereo processor and then return the processed stereo signal back to the DP-32 to a new pair of tracks.

Why not tap either the monitor out or stereo out jacks to send the signal to the processor? As long as the faders for the return tracks are off, you won't get a feedback loop.

(edit:Oops. I think we cross posted.)

 

[David Porter]

Yeah, Mark... it just didn't occur to me for some reason until I was reading Phil's post.

That should work just fine... as you said, as long as I keep the faders down to prevent a loop.

Sweet! I'll give it a go when I get off work later.

Thanks!

 

[Mark Richards]

David, it just occurred to me that if you do what I suggested, you won't be able to monitor the processed stereo signal in real time.

I was just looking over the finalizer's features, and you may find the DP32 mastering tools easier to work with. They're very robust once you get familiar with them, and even the pre-configured compressor settings have worked very well for me. I think it might be worth your time learning the ropes. I routinely produce professional quality studio/CD masters without going outside my DP24. You can too.

 

[David Porter]

Thank you. I think I'm going to do exactly that (dig into the DP's mastering tools).