Free the Monitor A/B busses!

[JustinT]

First off, thank you Avid for the updates in 5.4 and later. They've made my life as a monitor engineer better. But there is still room to grow as far as monitor console workflow, specifically in the Monitor A/B bus routing. I posted some of this on IdeaScale, but wanted to elaborate here a bit.

I mix for a band that uses wedges and IEMs. The 2 monitor busses are great for simple soloing to a cue wedge or my own ear pack. Where the console is lacking is in creative routing of the Monitor A/B busses. I would like to hear talkbacks, radios, etc in my ears and wedges. I can do this with routing out of the console, back into a matrix and then use these outputs to my cues. However, you then can't easily control the level of your talkbacks in the cue, and I don't want my stage talk always blaring out of the cue wedge.

I tried setting up workarounds where the monitor A/B faders would work as a remote control for the Matrix level, but they're not included in the trigger menu. I wanted to assign the Matrix faders to the Flex faders A/B, but that's not an option. Monitor A/B are also not options in the Matrix mixer.

My only guess is that Avid is trying to protect us from accidentally setting up a feedback loop that creates horrible noise. However, you're really limiting routing options for monitor engineers. Please trust us to patch correctly and build some more flexibility into the monitor bus routing.

Like I said on my IdeaScale post, the ideal would be to add a new Monitor tab to the System page that gives the Monitor busses their own matrix mixer, maybe not as extensive as the normal matrix, but enough to add some extra inputs while still retaining level control on the surface faders. Or allow Monitor A/B in the normal matrix and then allow the Flex faders to control the matrix levels, not just the limited options they currently have.

Sorry for the long post, but it tends to get complicated. If you know of any other options, I'd love to hear them.