Drum Rack's "Audio To" field...wtf?

[willsanquil]

OK, so in Drum Rack, next to each chain there is a field called "Audio To"

The help description says that the audio to chooser can route the audio of each drum rack individually to any of the Set's return tracks, and then something about nested drum racks I couldn't quite follow.

I can't get this Audio To field to do anything.

Yes, I am aware that Drum Rack has its own sends that I can use for processing, as well as being able to create a new Audio Channel and route the individual drum rack cell to that for processing - but those are workarounds and I don't see why that Audio To field is there...my set has return tracks, the drum rack has return tracks, I've added nested racks inside one of the drum rack cells but nothing.

Wtf is up with this? Why doesn't it work?

[pepezabala]

hmm, you could use it to route the drumrack's returns to a live set's return channel. That's it mainly, I believe.

[willsanquil]

No, that's different.

I can easily create a return within drum rack and route that to the global sends.

What I'm talking about is the Audio to field, as shown in this picture:

http://imgur.com/4hhzT

I can't get that grey box to do shit. It sounds really great, what am I not doing?

[i3igTripplets]

If you want, select a few of those chains and group them, then look in the resulting rack to make those changes (make sure you have a return chain setup, maybe a reverb unit in there or something).

No, that's different.

I can easily create a return within drum rack and route that to the global sends.

What I'm talking about is the Audio to field, as shown in this picture:

http://imgur.com/4hhzT

I can't get that grey box to do shit. It sounds really great, what am I not doing?

[willsanquil]

Two things:

1) I did not know that you could group two chains to make a nested chain of racks, be it instrument or audio effect - cool, thanks!

2) This still does not make the Audio To field do anything:

Seriously, no one knows how to get this box to do something? cmon!

http://imgur.com/JxuMg

[invol]

The field you are referring to is only there for the Returns and is not supposed to do anything for the Instrument Chain. If you want to route an Instrument Chain out of a Drum Rack you do it via the Audio From chooser on an Audio Track.

[willsanquil]

I don't understand how it's only there for 'the returns' when it literally does nothing. The tooltip seems to indicate that you would be able to route things out of it.

I just can't imagine why a box would be there, have that description, then not be able to be turned into a drop down box or anything - that just seems so stupid. What am I not understanding about this?

If it's for 'the returns' then why do you not even use it when you're routing????

[Angstrom]

I agree about this. The drumrack implementation is pretty fucked up in lots of ways.
best to just ignore the madness of it, or you'll lose your mind.

hopefully one day they rationalise the whole thing

[i3igTripplets]

Take a look at the first screenie you posted.
Where it says Drop Devices Here - you need AT LEAST two devices (chains) there for it to work.

Make sure that there is at least one device (as there is) where it says Drop Audio FX Here;

Now select at least two of the chains from above and press CTRL G / group. The result will be new chain subgroup to the right. Now within that new chainset, you can change that field to one of the Returns.

What it's for, probably a few things, but I made a set of kicks and was able to route them easily to the same reverb effect.

[willsanquil]

You da man!

IT ACTUALLY WORKS NOW

http://imgur.com/2JSoJ

Don't know that I'll ever use it, but the fact that that Audio To box is no longer grey and is no longer a super secret mystery makes me happier than I want to admit

[i3igTripplets]

Herp Derp, lol. Glad you got it going, I was having a hard time keeping all the terms in line.

[duncwood07]

Ah, this finally makes sense. Something I've been wanting to be able to do for years has been right under my nose.

Bummer that you can't just assign different outputs for each drum chain. I got a new analog summing mixer and I was looking for a way to easily assign each drum stem to it's one analog output, but it looks like I'm still stuck waiting on that.

[jestermgee]

Ah, this finally makes sense. Something I've been wanting to be able to do for years has been right under my nose.

Bummer that you can't just assign different outputs for each drum chain. I got a new analog summing mixer and I was looking for a way to easily assign each drum stem to it's one analog output, but it looks like I'm still stuck waiting on that.

This can be done

You need to open the return chains in the drum rack, add a return chain, then set your elements to output only to the chain.
If you group elements together it is easier.
Set each of the chains to output to a send in Live
Set the send in Live to output from your interface outs

Picture of the setup above to follow along with.