Central Station not for everyone....

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xstatic

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Just wanted to warn people before they made the same mistake I did. If you have a console and a DAW, and use them both, the central station may not be for you. It has a decent selection if I/O, however, you can only use one input at a time. In my situation, I use a console to monitor live mics while using a DAW to track and mix. In this setup, the Central station will not allow you to monitor both (at least as far as I can tell and I have one sitting right here:( ).
 
hmm that sucks man. is ther any way you can rig something up that will work for you?
 
The unit's not designed for that, it's a source switcher and speaker selection unit, not a mixer.........

If you have a console, you can easily route the audio into it for monitoring alongside your live mics.
 
(as long as your console doesn't have any crosstalk issues)
 
The Central Station also doesn't work very well as a sewing machine... :rolleyes:

But it smokes when used as designed.
 
pdlstl said:
The Central Station also doesn't work very well as a sewing machine... :rolleyes:

But it smokes when used as designed.
Click to expand...
LOL!

Seriously!
 
I bet it works well if you want to beat your bitchy girlfriend with it tho. ;) Kinda make it a bit of a multi tasking unit then.
 
Wow, its amazing how quickly the children come out. I don't need another console. My D&R is doing just fine. At this point, there is nothing I can do to make the Central Station fit my needs. My console already has a master section that does everything (and more) than the Central Station. What I was hoping was to replace another s/pdif D/A with the central station and to add speaker selection to my console. However, only 1 input at a time can be utilized. Silly me I guess for assuming that an Aux input can be used in conjunction.

So Blue bear, how do you suggest I use my console to do this? Basically, I am selling my other D/A under the assumption that the Central Station would take care of that single s/pdif line coming from my computer. If it can't do that, then its a bit of a waste of money for my situation.

Now, some of you seemed a little offended at my statements about the Central Station. I highly suggest re-reading my post which was in no way negative about the Central Station, but completely truthful. Not only that, I even explained what my situation was so in order to validate my statements. I see now that what I thought the Central Station could do, and what it actually can are two differnt things. It also stands to reason that if I made this mistake, that it is quite possible that someone else could as well. Isn't that what these boards are all about? Learning and helping?

As for selling my Central Station, sorry guys. Its getting returned and the money is already designated for an external clock:)
 
You came across as complaining that a toaster can't cook a turkey.... that's why you received the comments you did....

AS far as using it in your situation, you still could... run the CUE outputs from the back of the unit into one of your console's External inputs (or equivalent) - this way you can use the AUX feed from the Central Station together with whataver else you select via the console monitoring.
 
Sorry Blue Bear. I just barely re-read my first post, and I still don't see how I came across like that. I really felt like I was being objective and fair in my statement. I actually have plenty of experience with system integration and such, so I really felt like the post was appropriate for anyone who might be recording in the same style that I do. Especially if they were to have to mail order one in and even if they did return it would lose on the shipping. Plus, that was all someone had to say instead of the slew of sillyness that followed.

On another note, I was previously using a MOTU 2408 mk2 as a standalone just to convert the s/pdif form my Nuendo setup to analog to feed the desk. I don't use input monitoring but rather use the sync (tape) returns from my console to monitor live tracks so I never even have to think about latency. I am not opposed to trying to make the Central Station fit my needs. It seems like a cool box. So first, if I hook the s/pdif into my CS, I can use it as a converter. Then I send the cue out (having selected the digital ins on the CS Cue section) to the console channels? (just like I had the MOTU setup). Then I take the consoles master output (or CR out) and send it to the TRS 1 main inputs on the CS. I am assuming that in this way I can now use the CS first to convert my s/pdif to analog, and secondly as a Master volume and speaker selector that would now contain a blend of my DAW outputs and whatever I use from the console. Does this sound correct? It seems like that may work, I will try and sneak over and patch it that way today if I can. It's a little redundant, but it may work which allows me to sell my MOTU to a friend who I work with that needs it. I guess if worse comes to worse, I could just keep at is a plain and simple 2 channel D/A converter. Anyone actually compared the Converter's sound to that of a MOTU 2408 mk2 (which isn't all that fantastic but perfectly usable).
 
Yawn. I'm bored.

If I may interject.... even if My comments are unwelcome...

When someone "jumps your fence" and then offers to help you cook your BBQ after you have asked for the help with the BBQ dont keep ranting about the fact that they jumped your fence. Get the BBQ cooked. Oops i am in the wrong thread. Sorry guys

I am making my exit now.

Mixon and Mix well. :)
 
I'm not offended about the central station not being of use to you. I love mine and still think that it would make for a good tool to beat someone with as well. As well as I'm sure that it would make for a great expensive door jam too. But I like mine best for what it does, and it does the job very well. :):):)
 
A quick call to Mark Williams at Presonus would have saved you from ordering/sending back.

I can assure you, when I'm about to purchase a new product on the market, I speak to a human being at the manufacturer to ensure it will/will not fit my needs.

Having said that, your original post on this issue will help some folks I'm sure.

2¢
 
That was my point exactly. Purely to show where the Central Station might not be the right tool. I never intended to "bash" the Central station. As far as calling Presonus goes, I don't have the time to do that. At the time I was in the middle of finishing up two large projects, getting a 5 system 2 week festival off the ground, trying to make my wife happy be being prepared for vacation, and making preparations to take over a pro audio company. I even had to send someone else down to purchase the Central Station. I wasn't even upset that it didn't work for me. However, these boards are about learning. For those people reading this post that have setups similar to mine, maybe I just saved them a headache.

On a side note, when I hooked it up there were some things that I did and didn't like about it. First, I thought the D/A sounded decent. Nothing really special, but better than some of the run of the mill stuff out there. I liked the fact that they allowed you to clibrate meters and ouput volumes. I loved the headphone switching capabilities, but thought the headphone amp sounded pretty poor. The build quality felt pretty good, and the knobs were nice and smooth. Also, it looks good racked and has nice pretty little lighting schemes:D
 
Hmmm....
Why do you need to use it to monitor that way anyway? You run the outs from your daw into a stereo L/R input on your console, now you have monitoring of both sections you were wanting to monitor. Now, run the main outs from the board into the central station, and from there to your speakers and wherever. Everything does what its supposed to do and everyone is happy.
If you sell it let me know. It certainly fits my need of blinky things and usefulness.
 
tubedude said:
Hmmm....
Why do you need to use it to monitor that way anyway? You run the outs from your daw into a stereo L/R input on your console, now you have monitoring of both sections you were wanting to monitor. Now, run the main outs from the board into the central station, and from there to your speakers and wherever. Everything does what its supposed to do and everyone is happy.
If you sell it let me know. It certainly fits my need of blinky things and usefulness.
Click to expand...

I think his point is he wanted to by pass the mixer. If he goes thru the mixer then there's no real point in the monitor section mine as well plug the mixer into the speakers.
 
The reason it wouldn't work that way for me is that I needed to use the s/pdif on the Central station as well as the main outs from my console. I did find a way to make it work, but it seemed kind of redundant so I returned it. For me, the money could be better spent elsewhere. Instead it looks like I am going to save up for a couple more weeks and get an Apogee Big Ben and maybe some other D/A converter. The Central Station was almost more of a matter of convenience for me since my console already has a nice master section. The only thing my console didn't really do was allow me the third channel of speaker switching which I had planned to use to activate/deactivate a sub with my monitors.

Teacher is right as well, no matter how "clean" the Central station's audio path might be, why bother going into the CS, out from the CS to the console, and then back to the CS once again. Overall my experiences with it were not bad, it just wasn't the most efficient piece for my money for my setup. I still may buy it again later as an extra semi-matrix (splitter) and for a speaker switcher, it has just been bumped farther down my purchase list.
 
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