Bug or feature? Input Monitoring on Maschine: Sound is always on even after muting channel

solsta

hey guys, So I'm recording audio into a project with my microphone and I noticed something that may be odd behaviour at least to me.

I use a Komplete audio 6 MK2 with my setup and it has live input monitoring which is awesome. Maschine has this In the software too but it has some lag so I rarely use it.

I'm on 2.18 on Sonoma and I discovered that if I put up my gain on my microphone high enough, maschine picks up the noise and sends it to the master channel on left or right channel depending on your selection in settings. So Maschine's master channel appears to start receiving a monitoring signal. Let's say this is sound 1 on my pads, even if I mute the sound and all plugins including the "audio" or "sampler" default, I still get audio coming out to my master. If I reduce my microphone gain below a certain point, maschine stops picking it up but my sampling section continues to hear my signal normally.

The monitor audio toggle adds another feed of monitoring audio in both channels but this "other" monitoring output is present with monitor option turned off. It's super confusing to me. But only if my interface is turned up full gain on the mic. The selection on my interface is "instrument", the mic is phantom power and it is connected via XLR.

This first image shows what happens when I turn up my microphone gain on the interface, it bleeds into my master channel and even with music playing I hear the microphone as if monitor is on but I have it deactivated.

Second image shows that sound still is picked up normally from my sampling section and the sound is muted so why is it outputting to my master?

This happens whether or not I have muted the entire sound.

With gain below 90% the software monitoring section also seems to work just fine toggling on and off. I can hear it just fine

I'm curious if I'm just unfamiliar with some feature of monitoring or if this is a bug. Because this happening with the monitor feature on makes sense to me, but I don't understand why turning up my gain somehow sends signal directly to master. But when I lower it below 90% on my interface, it behaves normally and still samples/records with appropriate gain.

Hope this made sense

solsta

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/152709#Comment_152709

amazing explanation this all makes sense now

@D-One You've explained it great too in my case the Pad was receiving the audio source directly and audio mute was not active in my case.

So as long as I have selected my microphone source, it will send signal all the way through my chain unless I have used audio mute. Monitoring was adding the monitoring signal but I was doubling up with the original monitor signal coming through the entire chain.

Sheesh I think I get it now!

@darkwaves you were spot on. I had never encountered this issue until now because my microphone was always low enough gain that It never got to my meters. I turned on a filter on my microphone and so I was able to boost gain because the noise floor was better due to the filter cutting out <60Hz

D-One

Analog inputs always have noise even if very little, the more you turn the gain up, the more you increase the level of the noise, AKA noise floor.

If I reduce my microphone gain below a certain point, maschine stops picking it up but my sampling section continues to hear my signal normally.

It can't stop picking it up based on gain, it just becomes too quiet to move meters or be audible… (which is what you're using to determine if it picks it up?)

Second image shows that sound still is picked up normally from my sampling section and the sound is muted so why is it outputting to my master?

Muting does not stop monitoring, and it makes sense as you might want to hear what you're recording currently without hearing what you had previously recorded = monitoring + mute.

Because you have monitoring "On" right there on the bottom of the Sampling menu? - Actual question I can't tell because of that image quality, use screenshots my friend on a Mac it's just CMD+SHIFT+F4 or F3 for full screen.

Now what I am confused about is how you got input monitoring routed to the master to move it's meter, it doesn't do that for me…

What interface are you using? Do you have anything uncommon setup like loopback options or aggregate/multi-out devices?

solsta

Thanks for responding @D-One

My post was a bit long winded but thanks for clarifying some things.

RE: Monitoring being on or off, this didn’t matter though when i turned monitoring in, i did get ANOTHER monitor signal if that makes sense so i had two monitor signals from my microphone.

I do use aggregate devices regularly but for recording, aggregate devices don’t work well i just select the actual sound interface in my case it’s a Komplete Audio 6 MK 2

I didn’t know it just plays the monitor signal through the master either. Also RE: meters, when it’s quiet enough to stop coming out of master channel, the meters in sampling don’t change much so the perceived input signal doesn’t change much but there’s a line where it just comes out of master and not. The thing about analog inputs may be it.

My microphone is a sE Electronics SE2200A II condenser

D-One

 i did get ANOTHER monitor signal if that makes sense so i had two monitor signals from my microphone.

Hum…. That's odd, are you on MacOS Sonoma? There were some bugs related to Aggregate devices that are supposed to be fixed in the latest version but maybe there are still some issues. Can you try deleting all your multi-out/aggregate devices temporarily to see if the problem goes away? Maybe it causes a bug even if you dont use it. The input should really not be making the Master meter move at all…

I've had a similar issue before and found the culprits were virtual Audio drivers (Rogue Ameba, Blackhole, Zoom driver to share audio from screenshare, etc…)

I didn’t know it just plays the monitor signal through the master either. Also RE: meters, when it’s quiet enough to stop coming out of master channel, the meters in sampling don’t change much so the perceived input signal doesn’t change much but there’s a line where it just comes out of master and not. The thing about analog inputs may be it.

Technically It doesn't go to the master, it goes to the CUE but usually people have the same outs on the CUE - This has some importance because the CUE is for things like say the metronome where you do not want any Master FX to be applied to, so it bypasses everything. Input also goes to the CUE… But again, CUE should not move the master meter or it would blink when you enable the metronome on an empty project.

darkwaves

I'm a bit confused with this thread.

For example (pretend that source is "In 1 R"; lol):

The section at the top would have the audio playing through the pad, into the group and then into the master (or however your routing is setup). The section at the bottom would route through the cue bus.

By default, muting a pad only mutes triggers (i.e. midi). It wouldn't mute the audio you're routing into the pad. Enable audio mute if you want to mute incoming audio. Here's a GIF showing

https://imgur.com/ZsmY6SX

In this example, the audio from my mic (in 1 R) is routed directly into the pad. I use an eq and distortion to jack up the sound. You can see the main meter moving. Muting the pad does nothing until I enable audio mute.

(really wish we could upload gifs here)

D-One

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/152709#Comment_152709

Ooohhhh…… OK, I forgot! If you set a "Source" on the Pad IO then it goes through the full chain, Sound>Group>Master, otherwise, It does not. This is useful if you want to hear the Input with the FX Chain, and probably other scenarios too but it doesn't seem great for the OP's case as it's not needed to be able to just record/sample.

Also, if you have Source + Monitoring on in Sampling you will hear the Input Signal Twice; this actually explains everything hahah. TY @darkwaves, sheesh I am getting old… I've had this convo like 5 times before and did not remember.

solsta

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/152709#Comment_152709

amazing explanation this all makes sense now

@D-One You've explained it great too in my case the Pad was receiving the audio source directly and audio mute was not active in my case.

So as long as I have selected my microphone source, it will send signal all the way through my chain unless I have used audio mute. Monitoring was adding the monitoring signal but I was doubling up with the original monitor signal coming through the entire chain.

Sheesh I think I get it now!

@darkwaves you were spot on. I had never encountered this issue until now because my microphone was always low enough gain that It never got to my meters. I turned on a filter on my microphone and so I was able to boost gain because the noise floor was better due to the filter cutting out <60Hz