Please help me wrap my head around the concept of gain sliders in Cantabile and share your recommendations on the corresponding settings.
I. What’s the relationship between the Master Input Gain slider and the Main Microphone slider and what’s the difference between them? Why are they independent?
II. What’s the relationship between the Master Output Gain slider and the Main Speakers slider and what’s the difference between them? Why are they independent?
III. (Recommended settings and adjustments)
a. Are there any recommended values for each of those 4 Cantabile sliders/parameters?
b. If I want to improve and increase, for example, the volume and definition of the output signal while streaming audio in Zoom, which approach will be better: to rotate the mic input knob on my audio interface, or to tweak the sliders in the compressor/maximizer plugins, or to experiment with those 4 Cantabile sliders?
(My live setup is basically an acoustic guitar picked by 2 RODE NT1 mics.)
Cantabile is by design very flexible. I have been working on a PDF to be called ‘The Gain Chain’ to help users to understand all the places to find gain control and the various ways that it can be used. Since there is still a lot to do on this project, I will try to give you some pointers. (of course, if I need correcting somebody please jump in).
The Master Input Gain will increase and decrease all audio inputs together. The individual audio input gains only affect a single input. In your case, you could use this to balance your 2 mics (if you bring them into Cantabile on separate inputs) using Cantabile, and then control the total input gain with the Master. Output is the same in reverse.
Refer to Corky’s post above. You can also control the gain on your plugins with the plugin slot (wrapper) or often in the plugin itself. I generally use the plugin slot because it is more visible and the binding is cleaner than inside the plugin.
Where and how much? On the analogue side this is more critical than the digital. Once you are in the digital realm, Cantabile does its best to protect us from ourselves. In Cantabile, I usually start with the default 0 db and work down from there. Look at the meters and keep them well below the orange. Noise floor is not the concern that it used to be. For the effects plugins, there is the old recommendation that your keep the input to -10db or -18db. I am not sure that it applies in the digital realm, since everything is automatically converted up to 32 bit.
As for where to do your controlling, you need to look at your work flow. As a musician, I like knobs and buttons that I can quickly access. Cantabile Solo has good basic midi binding support, Professional will turn on your espresso machine and control your light show. So, you can use an external controller with Cantabile. On the other hand, there are nice small mixer/audio interfaces that would allow you to manage your on-the-air control.
