Blend Cue and Master outputs to one pair of headphones

[C-Mac]

Does anyone know how to do this. I've search everywhere for a solution to this but I can't find anything!

Here's an extract from Sound on Sound which conveys my problem quite well:
In order to make sure that the tracks you are cueing up will blend in with what's playing out, you need to hear both. Typically, you can listen to the headphones and the main PA (or booth monitors) at the same time, using the traditional one-ear-off DJ headphone approach. However, sometimes you might want to hear both the 'A' and 'B' tracks in the headphones. It might, for example, be hard to hear the PA, or there may be a delay which would screw up any attempts at beat-matching. In this case you can assign both the 'A' and 'B' tracks to the Cue mix. (Some DJ mixers have a 'Mix to Cue' pot or button, but this is not replicated in Live.) For this to work, you need to make sure that the Cue buttons are not in Exclusive mode, otherwise only one Cue button can be active at a time.

The problem for me is that I might have lots of tracks running at the same time so it's difficult to switch from listening to just the cue and then listening to both the cue and everything else that's coming out of the master. I'd like to be able to hear the master on the headphones as well as the cue with just the press of one button. Do you have any idea how I can achieve this?

Cheers for any help you can provide...

[S4racen]

You need to set up a whole load of sends if you want this opiton as far as i know.

Each track you want to cue set it up send to say "A" send by mapping a button to it's knob control, one push sends the audio to the send another turns it off.....

Now create three audio tracks two feeding from the "A"send and a further one feeding from the master. On the two audio tracks feeding from the send pan one hard left and one hard right, now map your cue switch button (the one that when pressed selects between heariong just the cue or the cue in one ear and the master in the other to the volume controls of the MAster Audio Channel and one of the tracks fed from the send (you decide which ear you'll have switching between the master and the cue)... Now select the I/O of these three tracks and send them all to Send "B" where you have highlighted the cue option...

Now audio will go to send A that you want to cue, come out to two audio tracks that get split left and right and then summed back with either both left and right or say left and the master in Send "B" which is what your headphones should actually be listening to, just make sure that send "B" is set to "Post" rather than "Pre"

Cheers
D

[C-Mac]

Wow...you certainly know your stuff

Thanks very much for the advice. I'll give this a shot to see how it works. I understand it in principle, just need to see how practical it is. I was hoping that the 'resampling' input would be able to cue but doesn't work to my knowledge.

Maybe there's a hardware solution to this? I'm currently using an Audio 8 DJ interface but it can only listen to one stereo pair on the headphones, so its either the master OR the cue. Maybe there's some kind of splitter / mixer I could use with a blend knob (i.e. split master out into 2 - one to headphones and one to amp / speakers, then mix headphone out with one of master outs via a 'box' with a mix dial on it - not a full blown mixer b/c it's too much to carry around to venues)???

For info, I'm using Scratch Live / Audio 8 / APC40 / 2 laptops (one for SL and one for Ableton Live and Resolume Avenue). Track setup is as follows:

1. SL Deck 1 (line)
2. SL Deck 2 (line)
3. Deck 1 (phono option - for normal vinyl)
4. Deck 2 (phono option - for normal vinyl)
5/6/7/8. Ableton warps

I'm surprised that Ableton hasn't incorporated cue/master mix as a feature. IMHO this seems like a fairly basic requirement for dj's to compensate for poor monitoring facilities. It's also useful to keep the neighbours happy because then I don't have to have the speakers on (can do a mix with just headphones on).

Thanks again for the help, it's much appreciated.

[S4racen]

Yeah i'm surpirsed they haven't either... It is limited to the cue buttons pumping out to one or two tied together audio channels!

If you have a multiple out soundcard though you can pretty much set up any form of monitoring that you want...

Cheers
D

[Syver]

Hello,

Any improvements on this in Live since 2009 ?

[Syver]

Any improvements on this in Live since 2009 ?

If not can anyone please recommend me a portable audio interface that would have this feature : i.e hardware control over blending Cue and Master signals to one pair of headphones for DJing with Live ?

Thank you.