djing with live and the firewire audiofile?

[scottt.]

Does anyone dj with Live using the firewire Audiophile interface? i have read the manual on solo/cue mode but cannot figure out how to cue clips for live performance. Anyone have tips on this matter. thanX!

[matt ob]

Sorry, can't help you with your question but I have oneof my own!

Was thinking of buying one of these cardsfor DJ'ing - what do you think of the card overall? Does it offer reasonable latency?

[JacksinMS]

Does anyone dj with Live using the firewire Audiophile interface? i have read the manual on solo/cue mode but cannot figure out how to cue clips for live performance. Anyone have tips on this matter. thanX!

Once I started clickin around a bit everything works great, here's how:

1. Open the "Mixer" tab on your FW Audio Control Panel.

2. On the "sw 1/2 rtn" column highlight "1/2" & "3/4".

3. Select the "Output" tab & highlight "3/4" in the phones column.

4. Open up Live (I'm using 4.0.3) & goto the Preferences.

5. Under the "Audio" tab, hit the "Output Config" button.

6. Highlight "1/2 (stereo)" & "3/4 (stereo)" and do the mono's too.

7. Make sure your using the ASIO drivers, my latency is 14ms.

8. Under the "View" menu, make "In/Out" & "Mixer" visible.

9. On the "Master" column, change the "Cue Out" from 1/2 to 3/4.

10. Hit the "Solo" button by the main volume & it should chage to "Cue".

Thats it! Now you can cue up stuff in your headphones, just make sure the little speaker button is off & the headphone button is on for each track that you wanna cue up.

Matt ob, I think the card has pretty good latency. There are some cards that get a lil less but I think 14ms is pretty fast & I'm using midi controllers with it that work great. Plus it's really easy on the eyes.

[mg75]

EASY...

open the FireWire Audiophile Audio Interface Application (should be installed on your machine. On the Mac it is in the System Prefrences as well).

In the HARDWARE section set the monitoring setting to "headphone source A/B

The most important thing to do is SAVE the setting. If you don't save the setting,the interface will re-set itself to defult when you quit the application. Sometimes I find myself needing to LOAD my setting everytime I try to DJ with it, so just test it before you play LIVE.
Once you load it, it works perfect.

[JacksinMS]

Yeah, thats one way to do it, but if you can use another channel....

[scottt.]

for anyone else who is using this method for djing the step by step above is great! i think i still have a setting wrong though because all i can hear is the channel with the little speaker lit.
scottt.

[JacksinMS]

I don't know why it's not workin for ya scott.... all I can say is be sure to have cue, not solo selected on the master channel & make sure the cue volume is up & you've got cue set on 3/4.... grr... I wish I could make a video for ya...

[colossus]

n reply to Matt's query above, I've been using a FW Audiophile for DJing throughout this year, and been very pleased with its sound quality and performance.

[matt ob]

JacksinMS / colossus - thanks for your replies, I bought one of these cards yesterday and am very happy with it. Seems to do everything I need, pretty fast for the price too.

Cheers,
Matt

[JacksinMS]

rock on matt... it is a really nice card, kinda sexy lookin too.

[mylkoa]

Does anyone know how to control the volume of
a cued object relative to the signal coming
from the main outs?

For example, I'm doing a live session, and I import
some loops from the browser. I can cue them and hear
them just fine, but I can't adjust its level against what's
playing on the main outs. All I can do is preview the clip
at a constant volume (as dictated by the headphone
volume knob). When in cue mode, I can adjust the
headphone volume, but not the track volume. That makes
it difficult to get good level mathces when I decide
to active the loop I'm cueing into the mix the audience is
hearing.

Anyone have a fix idea?

[JacksinMS]

You get 10 points for vigorous use of the search function, this post is almost 2 years old!

Unfortunately, you're not going to like my answer. I ran into the problem a while back & came up with a few workarounds.

One way to see how loud the track will be is to deactivate it. The volume will go from green to grey. This way you can adjust the Track Volume but you'll run into the same problem if you try to cue it.

Another more tedious method is to adjust each files volume before hand using the Clip Gain slider located between the Transpose & Complex options - For instance, after I render a whole track or loop, I play it in the session view with Track Volume at 0dB. Then I alter the Clip Gain so the levels come just a little over the 0dB marker at the peak of the song.

I do that to all my tracks so I don't need to constantly preview what volume it'll be because I know they'll all be nearly the same. The reason I put them at 0dB is just in case I want one track to be a little louder then I have wiggle room to raise it up.


This probably isn't what you wanted to hear but I hope it helps!

[mylkoa]

Yeah, I figured it wouldn't be possible to level during cue,
for the reason that the track level meter greys out.

I guess it's something to include on the wishlist.

P.S. I'm glad you noticed my ardent use of the search
function. I routinely read archives, and I come across people
asking basic questions that could be answered in the manual,
or stuff that has been answered before in other posts. But
with time and experience, I'm sure most user's build confidence
that they can either figure it out themselves, or find answers in
the archives.

My next search will be on how to do better searches

Cheers,
Andy

[sherpa]

Sorry - another newbie here trying to setup for DJing for the first time. I've followed the above instructions but no success. This is what I've done and what's happening - anybody who could help, please do - I have my first Live set in a few hours!

Wiring:
Macbook connected via F/W to M-Audio.
Line outputs 1/2 on Audiophile connected to main amp and speakers.
External drive with audio files connected to second F/W port on M-Audio

M-Audio prefs:
mixer -
1/2 and 3/4 selected in "1/2 s/w rtn" column
3/4 selected in "3/4 s/w rtn" column
output -
3/4 selected in "phones" column
hardware -
1/2 selected for A
3/4 selected for B

Live prefs:
Audio:
Input Config: 1&2 Mono and Stereo
Output Config: 1/2 stereo and 3/4 stereo
Session view mixer:
Cue out set to 3/4
Master out set to 1/2


What happens in Live:
Both audio tracks are set with Audio From: Ext In and 1/2 Audio To: Master
If I set the M-Audio source as A, I hear BOTH audio tracks with levels set by the gain on each track (on speakers and headphones). If I switch the M-Audio source to B, then I still hear both tracks on the speakers, but if I bring the gain of the cued track to zero I still hear it in the phones.

I tried changing the M-Audio mixer preferences to select only 1/2 in "1/2 s/w rtn" column.
This had the effect that choosing B source on the M-Audio i hear
only the cued track on my headphones, but I still hear both tracks on my speakers.

So it seems the only way to cue something is to manually bring its track gain to zero, cue it, and then guess what level I need to bring it in to the mix. I can't hear a "premix" at the tracks gain levels without playing it over the speakers.

I assume that if I hit the headphone button on a track then it should ONLY come through the phones and not the speakers.

Please, I obviously have something set wrong, but I think I've followed the previous instructions correctly. Advice appreciated.

Thanks in advance....

[missjade]

Sorry - another newbie here trying to setup for DJing for the first time. I've followed the above instructions but no success. This is what I've done and what's happening - anybody who could help, please do - I have my first Live set in a few hours!

...alright, i know it's 3:30am, but am i reading this correctly?

(sorry for the really unhelpful post )