Congratulations on getting a Midas Venice! The original Venice was about the best-sounding console in its price range I have had the pleasure of mixing on. With the recent Midas change of ownership, one has to trust that both the audio and production quality remain unchanged from that of the products made by the earlier company.

In the Venice, the digital output is taken from the same point as the analog Direct Output. In the default configuration, this is switchable on the panel between pre-EQ and post-EQ, both of these being pre-fader. This means that the channel faders do not affect the digitised signal level, as you have found out. However, by changing an internal jumper on each channel (the "Post Fade Link"), the post-EQ setting can be turned into a post-fader setting. In this latter position, the digitised level is taken after the channel fader. My personal opinion is that I think you would have to have a very good reason for wanting to change the links, as you should be recording raw signals and then applying level changes in the mix.

Any Venice input channel can be switched to receive its signal from FireWire instead of from a pre-amp. You should not need to use any other soundcard if you patch the FireWire ins and outs on the Venice appropriately.

The 2-track mix output can be sent to FireWire by using the right-hand button on the output section to replace the FireWire of the highest-numbered stereo output. For further information, see Ch7 in the Venice F manual.

thank you very much for the reply. that really helps clear things up for me. i get the sense you don't own one yourself so that makes this all the more impressive! i might have to hit you up with one or two more question sin the future but i'm gonna try muddle through things on my own for a while.

so next, question. it comes in five parts :)
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lets say i have tracks 1 - 4 as a small kit. they're all going into stereo. and i can hear them out my master, no problems.

but if i switch them to mono and raise the mono fader (yellow) i get nothing. what am I doing wrong?
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then, the groups and aux. i'm a bit confused on these.

if we go back to tracks 1- 4... they set to stereo and i get them out my master. if i route the tracks to group 3, then set that to override stereo channel 19/20, in Ableton's Live they only come in the left. i have to route to group 4 as well for stereo. that right? i lost my panning and have no way to get it back as far as i can see. Surely sending something to a group shouldn't do that?
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i have my faders on tracks 1 - 4 set to unity. my group fader is at it's base. when i listen through my master, i still get the full volume of tracks 1 - 4. Surely the group fader should now control their unified volume and it should be silent?

if i slide the faders on group 3 & 4 up, i see the meter led's light up, but there is no effect on volume.
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ok, last one. 8O

aux. i dial in some aux on tracks 1 - 4 using aux 1 & 2. I override stereo 17/18 with the aux 1 & 2. I see the signal arrive in Live. But it doesn't show up at my master out on the desk.
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one thing worth noting is that in none of the above instances do i see any action on the fader meters for the stereo channels.

I'm sure there's something pretty basic i'm not getting here. any pointers would be great.

Thanks!

Whew! There's quite a lot here, and I can't answer it all in detail at the moment, but I'll give a few pointers. Also, I don't own a Venice, so I'm having to speak from memory.

hima, post: 409280 wrote: lets say i have tracks 1 - 4 as a small kit. they're all going into stereo. and i can hear them out my master, no problems, but if i switch them to mono and raise the mono fader (yellow) i get nothing. what am I doing wrong?

The mono bus feeds only the Mono Master output and (via matrix faders) the Matrix1 and Matrix2-buses. Where were you monitoring when you said you get no mono output?

hima, post: 409280 wrote: Then, the groups and aux. i'm a bit confused on these. If we go back to tracks 1- 4... they set to stereo and i get them out my master. if i route the tracks to group 3, then set that to override stereo channel 19/20, in Ableton's Live they only come in the left. i have to route to group 4 as well for stereo. that right? i lost my panning and have no way to get it back as far as i can see. Surely sending something to a group shouldn't do that?

A group, like an Aux, is only mono. You need to use a pair of them for stereo.

hima, post: 409280 wrote: I have my faders on tracks 1 - 4 set to unity. my group fader is at it's base. when i listen through my master, i still get the full volume of tracks 1 - 4. Surely the group fader should now control their unified volume and it should be silent?

When sending tracks to a group, you should not send them to the stereo master as well. Make sure the Stereo button is raised on all the channels you send to a group.

hima, post: 409280 wrote: If i slide the faders on group 3 & 4 up, i see the meter led's light up, but there is no effect on volume.

Volume out of where? If you have the Stereo buttons depressed on each channel, you will be hearing those channels through the main mix rather than through the groups.

hima, post: 409280 wrote: aux. i dial in some aux on tracks 1 - 4 using aux 1 & 2. I override stereo 17/18 with the aux 1 & 2. I see the signal arrive in Live. But it doesn't show up at my master out on the desk.

Auxes are not routed to the master buses. They are meant to be a way of getting an independent mix out to a stage monitor or to an effects unit.

Boswell, post: 409216, member: 29034 wrote:
Congratulations on getting a Midas Venice! The original Venice was about the best-sounding console in its price range I have had the pleasure of mixing on. With the recent Midas change of ownership, one has to trust that both the audio and production quality remain unchanged from that of the products made by the earlier company.

In the Venice, the digital output is taken from the same point as the analog Direct Output. In the default configuration, this is switchable on the panel between pre-EQ and post-EQ, both of these being pre-fader. This means that the channel faders do not affect the digitised signal level, as you have found out. However, by changing an internal jumper on each channel (the "Post Fade Link"), the post-EQ setting can be turned into a post-fader setting. In this latter position, the digitised level is taken after the channel fader. My personal opinion is that I think you would have to have a very good reason for wanting to change the links, as you should be recording raw signals and then applying level changes in the mix.

Any Venice input channel can be switched to receive its signal from FireWire instead of from a pre-amp.

I realize many moons have passed since this discussion last had breath. However, I've recently implemented a Venice U16 into my set up and am wondering how I might access the Post Fade Link jumpers you mention to make USB/Direct Outs post fader - if such a thing exists on the U models. Any chance you're still out there to offer advice, Boswell? I hope you remain alive and well. Anybody have experience with this on the Venice U series?

Yes, I'm still here. It's only been 7 years since anything was posted in that thread!

I have never had my head inside the U models of the Venice, but according to the block diagrams in the user manual, the same pre-fade/post-fade jumpers are still there. Quite where they are now located physically or how they are labelled, I'm sorry, I don't know. Things have changed since the Music Group takeover of Midas.

The user manual for this U model does not make a big feature of the USB, but does say that up to 8 channels of data can be transferred in each direction. I see there are push-buttons for enabling connections to USB from the matrix out and for sourcing from the USB in the Multifunction group. This seems rather limiting to me, and a bit of a hack. The block diagrams do not show the USB board, so it's hard to know whether changing the jumper for the pre/post fader take off for the Direct Outs would affect the USB sends, but I expect it would.

I would have a look inside to see if you can find the pre/post jumpers, and then experiment!

Thanks for the speedy response to a could-be zombie thread. Any knowledge is better than none!

I've been RTFMing to some success. But there's pretty much nothing regarding utilizing the USB outs besides the c/o buttons - let alone what the channels default to. I have made some progress, tho.

Glad you are getting somewhere.

BTW, I've heard that the "U" in the model number of the new, improved mixer stands for "Uli".