Firestudio Project; What exactly does the volume knob do?

Hello,

In short, I'm confused, and want to know what exactly does the main volume knob (the one adjacent to the headphone jack) do in regards to amplification? If the volume knob is turned up, is the signal being made louder in software? Is it being made louder with an amp?

The reason I ask, and I haven't A and B tested this, but it appears that the signal is quieter when I plug into the main outputs versus output 1 and 2 and I don't know what to make of it.

Think of it this way. The volume on the main fader of your daw is the volume of the song file. The volume on your external hardware is the volume for your monitoring. The knob itself is an attenuator. There is no amplification in the FSP. The knob at unity is sending the full signal to your monitors.

To solve your question on volume differences, there may be a difference, and it may not be a problem. You need to look at the top of the output faders to see where they are routed to. Routing of ins/outs is done in song setup. The black box at the top of the mixer fader tells you what output pair that channel is routed to. At the bottom left of the mixer, there is a button labeled "Outputs", that will expose all of the faders for all configured outputs. Here you would see if there is a volume difference on the meters. You may be sending a higher volume to output 1-2. Volume controls for outputs other than the main are controlled on each channel's send panel. The main track fader controls the signal sent to the output listed on the top of the mixer for that track.

Clear as mud, right?

"The volume on your external hardware is the volume for your monitoring. The knob itself is an attenuator. There is no amplification in the FSP."

Hahaha, the knob has little numbers on it written, negative 80 to positive 10, and that's why I could reasonably believe it to offer amplification. If it's purely an attenuator then why don't they just write 0 on the high end and negative 90 on the low end? Aww well. This is good to know though because I was wondering why my monitor output seemed so much quieter when it was set at "0" (in the middle). Relative to when the monitors were plugged out of 1 and 2 it was 10 decibels quieter.

So, I should just set the main volume knob to max and be done with it?

So, I should just set the main volume knob to max and be done with it?

Right or wrong, that's what I do.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 25/06/2014 06:46:58

From the manual:

"Main. The Main knob controls the output level for the main outputs on the back of the FireStudio Project and have a range of -80 dB to + 10 dB." Turning it all the way up is increasing the level by 10 dB. This will certainly make it louder, but is probably not the best way to monitor.