GRACE m908 Monitor Controller
The monitor controller allows you to control where sound is coming from and where sound goes in the studio. The grace m908 is designed with surround sound in mind and can switch between different formats (5.1, 7.1, etc) as well as normal stereo. If you are interested in working with surround, please visit this help page.
If you would like a more detailed look into the Grace m908, the manual can be found here.
INPUT SELECTORS: There are 8 input selector buttons, four above and four below the screen. For normal use, select the top right 'ST Dante Input'. For the 1/8" cable jack choose 'Unbal aux". For surround sound, select the 9.1.4 Dante Input (bottom row, third from left).
HEADPHONES: There is a labelled headphone jack on the monitor controller.
DIM: attenuates (quiets) the input by a preset amount.
MONO: Converts the input into mono
MON>CUE: sends the monitor audio (audio coming through the control room speakers) to the cue sends (the cue mix audio coming out of the hearback units).
SETUP: Allows you to edit and program features of the monitor controller. Please do not mess with the current settings.
MUTE: Mutes the whole system
The following are three options for control room speaker configurations. To listen in stereo, select CR 3 (normal use). The other two buttons ae used for surround sound. Select CR1 for normal surround sound use.
CR 1: 9.1.4 surround sound (all of the upper speakers + the sub. We do not currently have height channels)
CR 2: 5.1 surround sound (front three upper speakers + middle back speakers + the sub. Not currently in use)
CR 3: 2.1 Stereo (left and right speakers below the wall-mounted television + the sub) USE THIS SETTING FOR NORMAL STUDIO PURPOSES
TALKBACK: When the talk button is pressed, a new cue input is engaged - a small microphone on the Grace m908 itself. This is used to talk to performers while they are in the tracking room through their headphone mixers.
VOLUME CONTROL: Works as a normal volume control. Press down on the knob to switch between the control room speaker volume and the headphone volume.
L: top left speaker
C: top center speaker
R: top right speaker
LS: Speaker behind and to the left of you
SUB: subwoofer
RS: speaker behind and to the right of you
LB: speaker behind you and to the left, middle back of room
SOLO/MUTE: When illuminated green, any speaker buttons that are pressed will be solo'd, muting all other non-solo'd speakers. When illuminated red, any speaker buttons that are pressed will mute the corresponding speaker. Press this button to switch between the two modes.
RB: speaker behind you and to the right, middle back of room
The RB and LB buttons can be used to toggle between three preset configurations (or "pages") of solo/mute assignments by holding them down. For stereo monitoring, there is only one page currently in use. For surround monitoring, there are two preset configurations. The buttons above are the default assignments, which do not include the two speakers at the very back of the room. To access these, hold down the RB button until the grey dot under "solo" is in the middle position (see image below). Once this is done, the "LB" and "RB" buttons will now correspond to these rear speakers.
The following are assignable controls. Currently, they are set to various downmixing options for surround sound.
A: 7.1 to LoRo (LoRo is stereo, stands for 'left only right only')
B: 7.1 to 5.1
C: 5.1 to LoRo
TROUBLESHOOTING
Note: always make sure you have "Dante Virtual Soundcard" selected as your input and output in the preferences section of your DAW of choice.
If the cue mix is not working, and there is no cue audio going from the m908 to the hearback units, the cue mix path in the m908 may have been reset. To fix this, press the setup button and then the mon>cue button. From there, use the knob to scroll to cue 1 routing. Press the knob down to select. Change 'source' from 's/pdif' to 'dante'. Make sure the 'source L ch' is output 17 and the 'source R ch' is output 18. Exit the setup menu by pressing the setup button.