17 posts
Page 1 of 1
Hello folks,

I have recently bought a Presonus Studiolive III 32R digital mixer and have been using this for a few weeks now.

Last night I came across a strange issue where the stereo balance was off on one side of a stereo pair of line inputs. After playing around for a while to get to the bottom of it and isolate the issue I found that the gain control on one of the pair was not actually changing the gain. This could be clearly heard and seen on the meter when adjusting the control and then doing the same on the correctly functioning partner input of the pair. I updated the firmware again although I was already using the latest firmware and also did a few power cycles and the same issue cropped up on the same channel. Suspecting the preamp on that channel (8) I plugged in a mic and the preamp gain control worked fine.

I then reset all of the ins and outs and routing on the digital mixer screen and the stereo pair started behaving as expected again. As soon as I start routing the inputs to the channels in the order that I want however, the issue reappears. I went around this loop twice and the same thing happened.

is this a known bug with UC Surface? I haven't had time to test all channels but at the moment I suspect that if I engage input to channel routing that isn't 1 for 1 that I loose control of the gain for the line input on one side of the stereo pair, it defaults to zero regardless of what I do with the control and the figure it displays.


Alternatively is there something silly that I might be missing?

Many thanks in advance!
Carl.


P.S. I have raised a ticket for the above but thought an experienced user might put kindly me right in this forum.
User avatar
by wahlerstudios on Wed Feb 05, 2020 8:51 am
I would say that this is not a typcial behavior (no bug), but there can things happening that "spontaneoulsy" change settings. For example, you should use the Soft Power function instead of just turning the mixer off. This makes sure that that present settings used are stored in the memory. A problem with electricity can also change temporary settings. Another field of problems can be network settings.

If you have your settings stored in a project/scene, the settings should be fully recallable and nothing gets lost.
User avatar
by carlwoodford on Wed Feb 05, 2020 3:25 pm
Thank you for the quick reply. I did not know about the soft switch off so that is good to know.

Tonight I did a factory reset and reinstalled the latest firmware. To test I ran a stereo signal into line inputs 7 and 8 and routed these to channels 14 and 15 in UC Surface with each as separate mono tracks panned left and right. The gain control works on both as expected.
However when I then route input 14 to channel 8 all gain engaged on line input 8 is instantly lost despite it still showing as being engaged. The control turns and shows a value but does not have an affect. Am I missing something big here about the digital routing? I can route input 14 to any channel except 8 and all is well. As soon as I click on routing 14 to 8 any gain on line input 8 disappears. I was under the impression any hardware input can be routed to any digital channel? Or are some combinations problematic?
User avatar
by wahlerstudios on Wed Feb 05, 2020 4:35 pm
It might be that you're thinking a little bit into the wrong direction. ;-) You can not route a signal TO a channel, you can only select the source where the signal comes FROM. As example: If you want to use analog input 8 for channel 14, you have to "tell" channel 14, that its analog input source is channel 8. Input 14 then has to be used as input source NOT from channel 14 and NOT from channel 8, but any other channel...

To be honest, I would simply NOT do this kind of routing, because you will never know what comes from where and goes to where. In a live situation this can easily stop an event. I don't really see the need to change routing, because you can use the inputs in the layout of the mix. So don't use input 8, if you want to mix the signal on channel 14. Simply plug it into channel 14 and you always know what is where.

The rack mixers do allow this kind of routing and you do have the full 32 analog channels (31+32 are also used for Aux In/RCA), but analog has nothing to do with AVB and nothing with USB. These three "worlds" are separated from each other. You can find in the Owner's Manual (section 14.2 "Default Routing") charts with the Input Sources, the Analog Sends, AVB Sends, USB Sends and SD Card Sends (the rack mixers only have a stereo SD card recorder), which helps to understand the general routing/patching. Routing is indeed a mighty tool and you can easily get lost. Try to stay in the 1 > 1 frame on all levels, as the charts show. Keeping things easy really makes sense!

The rack mixers are missing the "User Layer", which the Series III mixers have. This is a real cool feature and I use it a lot. Just select any input or output signal in the order you need them in the mix. This really makes things easier, but... - the User Layer does not change anything in the basic routing. Channel 1 is still channel 1 and AVB 1 and USB 1 and SD 1!

And, if you are using a 32R only, AVB routing has no relevance because you do not use an AVB network. USB patching can be relevant, if you are using Studio One. USB routing for Capture is fix, track 1 will always record channel 1 (the source routed to channel 1). But also for Studio One it makes sense to NOT change routing, because the song templates are based on a 1:1 routing (channel 1 is track 1), which is also relevant for DAW Mode, which is a feature of the consoles, not the rack mixers.

I have some difficulties to understand what you are trying to acchieve by routing signals/changing input sources. What are your inputs? Instruments? Line signals? Are you working in a studio? Or concerts/events?
User avatar
by carlwoodford on Thu Feb 06, 2020 5:43 am
Thank you again for taking the time to reply to me.

My main concern was that something is physically wrong with my rack and that there is an issue with that specific channel. I now do not think there is a physical issue more a strange interaction with the DSP routing.

Although the terminology I used is probably not correct, what you describe with the routing (telling a channel to take it's source from an input) is what I was trying to do.

I am using the 32R to connect lots of synths, pedals and sources in a studio setup, mainly line level inputs. It is not a big problem for me at all to simply run 1 to 1 it was more a workflow idea to group certain things together when I saw that each UC Surface mixer channel could take its feed from any physical input. It still seems very strange to me that this function exists but produces these strange effects and interactions between channels that are not linked, surely something is not right here. Again though, my main worry was that there was something wrong with my unit. It seems like an issue with the DSP or the software.

To clarify

Everything set 1 : 1 except for the following :-

Channels 14 and 15 taking their feeds from inputs 7 and 8 respectively. (Gains work fine)

Now add
Channel 8 taking its feed from input 14 (gain on input 8 channel 15 above no longer functions and any gain dialled in is reduced to zero)

------------

As a matrix :-

input > Routed to Mixer Channel
7 > 14
8 > 15
14 > 8



I appreciate by now that using the routing is not a good idea, but I do wonder why the above does not work?

thanks.
User avatar
by SwitchBack on Thu Feb 06, 2020 6:54 am
Two other things to keep an eye on:
- stereo linking channels and outputs is always odd-even, so 7-8 can be a pair but 14-15 can't.
- when linking channels the default pan setting is zero spread (dead center mono). For full stereo you have to set panning to 100% yourself.
User avatar
by carlwoodford on Fri Feb 07, 2020 3:34 am
Hi there thanks for the reply. Yes I did find that a little bit limiting when I discovered about the set pairs. In my recent test described above I kept it simple and didn't use any linking just mono channels.
User avatar
by SwitchBack on Fri Feb 07, 2020 4:34 am
I’ll try to reproduce your setup later today. What is the firmware version on your 32R?
User avatar
by carlwoodford on Fri Feb 07, 2020 10:33 am
Hey that's great many thanks for the offer to help out.

My Firmware shows as version 2.1.1.16522 and the UC surface app shows as 3.1.2.54970.


Thanks!
User avatar
by wahlerstudios on Sat Feb 08, 2020 9:14 am
If I may "correct" your matrix. It should look like this:

Channel | Input
7 | 14
8 | 15
14 | 7
15 | 8

I have tried to figure out what the problem could be. What I see is a difference between XLR and line signals. XLR inputs use preamp gain (shown as "Pre"), while line inputs use "Gain" only. The XLR inputs can be routed anywhere, including all settings (phantom power, polarity). Line inputs do not have those settings, and Gain works different, if at all. But the routing is possible.

I use a 32R.
User avatar
by SwitchBack on Mon Feb 10, 2020 6:39 pm
OK, few days later than planned I can confirm that there's something not right with line input gain. When an input is no longer routed to its 'home' channel then line level gain defaults to 0dB and can't be changed from the channel(s) the input is routed to. This is something that needs to be fixed, hopefully with the next firmware update. Until then you'll have to work around it :(
User avatar
by carlwoodford on Thu Feb 13, 2020 2:03 pm
Thank you both for your replies.

I am actually very relieved to hear that this issue has been recreated elsewhere, as I thought that either I was doing something stupid or my unit has a problem.

My ticket is still open but I have not heard anything back for quite a few days. I don't think that support quite understood what the issue was from my explanation.

I am surprised that nobody else has discovered this before now? It's not a massive issue for me. I shall run 1 to 1 and avoid the routing function until it is fixed.
User avatar
by matthewgorman on Thu Feb 13, 2020 2:15 pm
Can someone please list exact steps and I can get it reported correctly?

Matt

Lenovo ThinkServer TS140 Win 10 64bit, 8GB RAM, Intel Xeon
Lenovo Thinkpad E520, Windows 7 64bit, 8 GB RAM, Intel i5 Processor

S1Pro V5
User avatar
by SwitchBack on Thu Feb 13, 2020 2:30 pm
Hi Matt, I’ll PM. And I guess it hasn’t been reported before because it’s only for line inputs and not for the predominantly used mic inputs.
User avatar
by PAE Seth on Thu Feb 13, 2020 2:40 pm
Already logged and fixed in the next release.

Personally, this is a very weird setup and is not normal use case.

PC #1: Asus Prime Z690-P, i5-12600k 10-core (6+4), 32GB DDR4 3200 MHz, RTX 3060 12GB, ADATA XPG 512GB M.2 NVMe SSD, 2 x 1TB WD Black HDD

PC #2: ASUS X299 Prime Deluxe II, i7-7820X 8c/16t, 16GB 2666 MHz DDR4, GTX 1060 3GB, Samsung 970 EVO NVMe M.2 SSD (Win10 Pro), Samsung 860 EVO SATA SSD (Win11 Pro), OWC Aura 512GB NVMe M.2, 2 x 1TB HDD

Mac: 2010 Mac Pro 6 core 3.33 GHz, 32GB 1333 MHz DDR3, AMD RX 5500 XT 8GB, Alpine Ridge Thunderbolt 3 Card, Aquantia 10Gbps AVB card, Dual eSATA PCIe + Stardom 8xHDD Raid Tower
User avatar
by SwitchBack on Thu Feb 13, 2020 3:02 pm
Oh well, it’s more transparent to swap the plugs if you can. But I know at least one function room where the back of the mixer is boxed in to avoid tampering. Then it’s very convenient to have ‘soft-swapping’ available :)
User avatar
by SwitchBack on Wed Feb 26, 2020 4:54 am
Good news! I believe with the new mixer firmware now available (v2.2.16741) this is now solved :)

17 posts
Page 1 of 1

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 7 guests