Why Not Allow Separate Output Devices on OS X? Oh God, Why?

al3x · Post by **al3x** » Mon Feb 09, 2004 3:21 am

I know this topic has been done nearly to death, but I'm bringing it up again because it's just that important that the Ableton developers know what their paying customers want.

There is NO TECHNICAL BARRIER to allowing Live to send audio output through two separate output devices on Mac OS X. Traktor, Native Instrument's digital DJ software, can do it. Download the demo and try it. You can hook up a $40 iMic and route one set of stereo output through that, and the other through your Mac's headphone output. It works just fine, latency warnings or not. And Traktor users are very happy that they can use affordable audio hardware.

Please, Ableton, listen to your users and enable this option. CoreAudio handles multiple outputs quite elegantly. Please let users decide if we want to suffer a few milliseconds of latency, rather than making that decision for us. Thanks for listening!

Alex Reynolds · Post by **Alex Reynolds** » Mon Feb 09, 2004 4:08 am

Don't hold your breath.

al3x · Post by **al3x** » Mon Feb 09, 2004 4:13 am

Darn, see, I thought breath-holding would be the way to go. You know, passive Gandhi-style resistance, right?

Yeah, I know. Just thought I'd throw it out there. *Sigh*

stew · Post by **stew** » Mon Feb 09, 2004 12:23 pm

You could just get a cheap multichannel interface. I got this one, which is giving me six low-latency outputs in OS X.

garvey · Post by **garvey** » Mon Feb 09, 2004 7:43 pm

Stew:
That little Maya EX looks useful. Did you buy online? And the six outs show up in Live easy as pie, right?
mg

dirtystudios · Post by **dirtystudios** » Mon Feb 09, 2004 10:56 pm

you can just use jack or soundflower to do it, can't you?

k

garvey · Post by **garvey** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 1:08 am

OK, Stew, I went back and read some of the discussion from last year about the MAYA EX. Sounds like it's right, but is it still the case that PC users have to purchase the USB ASIO driver separately? And if I do that, will I then see at least a couple of stereo pair outs from Live?

Thanks,
mg

stew · Post by **stew** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 11:35 am

The Maya EX requires 3rd party ASIO drivers for MacOS 9 and Windows, correct. I didn't buy these drivers, though, I'm using my Maya in OS X. There I get six outputs I can use simultaneously in Live without problems. Outputs 1-6 are available as RCA jacks, and the outputs 1 and 2 are additionally available as headphone and SPDIF. The input port is not as good under OS X, I can only use the microphone input and not switch to SPDIF or line in.

garvey · Post by **garvey** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 1:42 pm

Thanks, Stew. Very helpful info..
I need one of those babies.

m

al3x · Post by **al3x** » Sat Feb 14, 2004 7:53 pm

Yeah, looks like that'd be the thing to get. I'd still like to be able to use the software I paid for how I see fit, however