Brad..

You supplied all the clues to your problem in your last message.

1) Lower your monitor pot to a hair above zero.

2) Set the main fader to "0 dB" (all the way to the top) This is where it should sit almost all of the time.

3) Bring up all your individual channel levels to suit the mix.  Bring them up till you get a good hot signal in the Korg's main  LED meters. It should be peaking regularly way into the yellow  LEDs.    If you don't have a 'big signal' in those output LED meters your s/n and dynamic range will suffer.  Keep the master fader to the top (at 0 dB).  All desks are designed to work this way and the 168RC is no exception.

4) Adjust your monitor level pot to set your in-room listening  ("monitoring") level. This "monitor" level is your "playback" volume control. It is       totally independant of your recording signal chain and should be thought of as that.  Make a little temporary label out of  masking tape that says "ROOM Volume" and stick it next to the pot.   Stare at for 10 seconds (or as long as it takes to burn that into your brain, mine takes about 10 seconds). Peel it off the desk and smile that smug smile.

If you do the above, the overall quality difference will knock you out.  Your Marantz levels will be where they should be. Your CDs will be hotter. Your room monitors will sound better (better s/n  ratio, better dynamic range) your music will sound better, well..   maybe ;)

re panels:
The panel suite will work woth any Cakewalk product that supports studioware.  I'm not certain about Pro version 5.0.  I'm not sure what version of ProAudio was out at that time.  The reason I say that is I remember some sort of trouble with huge panels in  ProAudio 5.0.  I never persued it though.

Rich
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