This page covers the two audio controls on the monitor panel: the master fader and the meters next to the preview. Both belong to one playout, and both show what that line is actually sending.
The master fader
Beside the preview, on each panel; its tooltip calls it the Main fader. It applies to everything that playout sends out — cues, music beds, the sound inside a scene.
It is a master, not a monitor level: pulling it down takes the audio off the output, off the stream and off the recording. What you hear and what leaves the building move together.
Each playout has its own; there is no fader across all of them.
The meters
The VU column sits against the edge of the picture, left and right channels side by side, on each panel.
They read after the master, so they show what is really going out. If the meters are moving and the hall is silent, the problem is downstream — the card, the desk, an amplifier — and not in this program.
Reading them
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| Nothing moving during a media cue | Silence: a file without audio, a volume at 0, or a master pulled down |
| Peaks around the top of the range | About right for programme material |
| Constantly against the ceiling | Too loud: pull the master down before it clips |
| Only one channel moving | A mono file, or one channel missing in the source |
One channel moving is worth stopping for. A file recorded on one channel plays out half-silent on a stereo system, and it is much easier to notice here than for a listener at home to describe afterwards.
Where audio does not appear
The meters show one playout. Sound from outside it — a source somebody added outside the playout, an application on the machine — is not on these meters, and not on this playout’s track either.
For a control room that runs nothing but the playout, that is the whole picture. Where it is not, audio tracks is the page that explains what else can be riding along.