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I downloaded and installed SPEC 4.2.1 and it's working fine. I have a few questions, though.

1) I have yet to try the whole thing with the CUE sheet and the level stuff, as I want to start by just doing a single tune, not an entire album. Is there some way to do this without doing an entire CD at a time?

2) This is more of a suggestion as opposed to a question. It would be nice if there were a way in the SPEC control panel (or the monitor) to press a button and mute a channel or multiple channels, to allow the user to listen to a certain channel or channel solo without screwing up the volume sliders. For example, to listen to just the rears and see how they sound as you slide the controls either way.

2a) Also, there does not appear to be a RESET button on the RSPEC control panel to set all controls and sliders back to the default setting.

The above suggestions may actually exist already, but I did not find them, so I ask.

At any rate, this is a great module and program. Very cool!

1) ZAG isn't really set up to use with less than two tracks. I suggest you just set its processing to bypass for one track, or use the layout without ZAG in it.

2) is easily do-able. I think I would make it as a separate group so as not to make the spec controls any larger. At one point various folks contributed something like that that also let you switch between hearing the surround and the original stereo. Perhaps I'll whip something up for you to play with.

2a) This could be done with presets:

Load the original release layout.
In the SPEC 4.2.1 group controls press the "Presets" button
Select "Add Copy (Read Only)"
Now press the preset button again
Select rename
Rename "Preset 1" to "Reset All"
Wiggle some sliders
Pull down the preset selector and select "Reset All"

That's it!

Try the attached.

You can connect your Audio monitoring device to the bottom of the new "ZMon" group. It has solo and mute controls for each surround channel. You can also switch between surround and stereo, or stereo doubled in the fronts and rears ("2X2" Stereo). There is also a gain control so you can match the volume of the stereo to that of the surround, for better A/B testing.

Zmon is a GREAT idea. Thanks, Zee. My usual workaround with this is that I can just turn off a speaker when I don't want to hear it, but this makes things a bit easier.

For oblio, you could always go back on what I said in the 4.2 guide, pull that gain spreadsheet out of the recycle bin, bypass ZAG, utilize some RMS Buddies to read your RMS levels, and utilize the gain spreadsheet when trying to balance an individual track. it still would be useful for that sort of purpose.

Wow Zee, you are THE MAN! That was fast.

Thanks!

This is great! Thank you!