Generating a constant test tone for failover interface

[steveheroan]

I’m trying to set up a failover system using the iConnect Playaudio12 interface, which requires a constant test tone from the primary computer to achieve automatic failover if the tone is interrupted. The tone gets routed to a “dummy input” on the interface (channel 13). Problem is, our band uses separate scenes for each song. How would one generate a test tone which would stay constant when launching individual scenes? Seems that the tone would get interrupted if it were applied to every scene in a clip “lane” when switching from song to song. Can a plugin on the master buss be routed to an individual channel only (like the aforementioned channel 13)? If not, is there a way to do this with Max4Live. Fair warning, I inherited this responsibility from a former band member who knows Ableton way better than I, so dumbing down any responses for me (a guitar player) would help lol.

[pottering]

You can right-click a empty Clip slot in Session View and select "Remove Stop Button" (ctrl+E). It will remove the Stop button so when the respective Scene is triggered it doesn't stop the Clip in that track.

[steveheroan]

Thanks so much for the tip. I’ll give that a try. Do I need to do this for every scene or just one?

[pottering]

Probably all that you don't want stopping the track, any slot with a Stop button will stop the Clip in that track when triggered. But you can shift-click to select several then remove the stop button for all of those.

[fishmonkey]

that sounds like the kind of thing that would be better handled by having another application playing the test tone (assuming that the test tone stopping is meant to indicate that the computer has failed in some way).

[steveheroan]

That may be worth looking into as well. I’m sure the guys at iConnect anticipated this, and will probably have a solution if I get stuck.

[EnjoyRC]

iConnectivity has posted a utility called LifeSine for doing exactly what you're asking.

[steveheroan]

iConnectivity has posted a utility called LifeSine for doing exactly what you're asking.

I downloaded the utility and it does exactly as you said. Thanks so much everyone! I’m not looking forward to setting up this whole system, but I am excited about being able to play with the confidence that a redundancy rig should provide. Thanks everyone for all the help!