Reply To: My monitor controller

[Kevan AtkinsParticipant]

Hey Edgar. To answer your question, the function of a monitor controller is very much the same as the monitoring section of a studio console. Except nowadays studios tend not to have consoles anymore, so a separate monitor controller is required to fulfil that function. The most basic monitor controller will give you control over the volume of your monitors and put it at your fingertips. That alone has some advantages over, for instance, a digital volume control such as in RME's TotalMix or the master fader in your DAW, which effectively ends up downsampling the audio as you get to lower volumes.

Other features monitor controllers can have are mute, dim (bumps the volume of the monitors down by a fixed amount if you need to talk), talkback (for communicating with talent in the live room), output switching (switching between different speakers, in my case a pair of Focal Solo 6 BE and NS10s), source switching, mono (L+R), difference (L-R), solo L, solo R. Monitor controllers can get pretty complex and expensive. I decided to go the DIY route and build my own using a very modular design approach, so it can grow as my needs do.