Ableton Forum

Is there some way, within Live, to adjust the monitor level of an individual track, independent of the volume fader?

Say you have a vocalist recording, and he's listening to the mix through headphones. He wants to hear his voice as he records - so you turn on Monitoring on the track. How do you control the level of his monitored voice?

Not the track's volume fader... not the microphone input level... perhaps a dedicated monitor level fader??

can't you just turn up the volume on the headphone output? That's what it's there for

if you're not getting enough gain from your headphone output then that means you need a better headphone amp.. there's a lot of cheap ones out there. For simple monitoring purposes even the behringer headphone amps will work. I can't really see the benefit of having this in the box.

if you mean having a custom monitor mix so the singer can hear other things too. Set up a return track and use the sends to send however and whater you want.

you could use aux sends to create diff headphone mix for different performers, i dod that everytime i'm recording someone else than myself or when recording more than 1 person

Muzik 4 Machines wrote:you could use aux sends to create diff headphone mix for different performers, i dod that everytime i'm recording someone else than myself or when recording more than 1 person

Could you explain this process? I don't understand Sends very well yet.

Let's pretend there's 3 tracks: one for the instruments, one for the drumbeat, one for the singer. The instruments and drums are already recorded; the singer is recording. The singer prefers to have his vocals mixed louder in the headphones (so he can hear himself recording) than do the other band members.

How do I use aux sends to set up the different headphone mixes?

alex1fly wrote:

Muzik 4 Machines wrote:you could use aux sends to create diff headphone mix for different performers, i dod that everytime i'm recording someone else than myself or when recording more than 1 person

Could you explain this process? I don't understand Sends very well yet.

Let's pretend there's 3 tracks: one for the instruments, one for the drumbeat, one for the singer. The instruments and drums are already recorded; the singer is recording. The singer prefers to have his vocals mixed louder in the headphones (so he can hear himself recording) than do the other band members.

How do I use aux sends to set up the different headphone mixes?

Open up the 'sends' tab. Ctr + Alt + s (sorry don't know the shortcuts on a mac) for each track send the amount you want to the return track 'A'. So since the singer wants the vocals louder choose the vocal track and max out the 'A' send on it. for the other tracks send as much needed. Then open up your i/o (ctr + alt + i) then select the headphone output on your audio interface for the return tracks "out". hope this all made sense.

That all makes sense except the last bit about selecting the headphone output on the return track's "out". Is this the "Audio To" menu of the return track? The choices in here are Ext. Out, Master, Track 1, Track 2, and Sends Only. I can select my audio interface as the return track's "out", but don't see where to select the headphones.

A-ha. Got it. I just select the interface, then use the controls on the interface. Righteous. Thanks a ton! One of these days I will understand Return Tracks.

Now that I can set the volume levels, I'm running into the issue of *not having enough overall volume in my headphone mix*. The headphone volume is turned up all the way on the interface. Perhaps I can... throw a limiter or compressor on the Return Track to up the volume??

alex1fly wrote:That all makes sense except the last bit about selecting the headphone output on the return track's "out". Is this the "Audio To" menu of the return track? The choices in here are Ext. Out, Master, Track 1, Track 2, and Sends Only. I can select my audio interface as the return track's "out", but don't see where to select the headphones.

A-ha. Got it. I just select the interface, then use the controls on the interface. Righteous. Thanks a ton! One of these days I will understand Return Tracks.

Now that I can set the volume levels, I'm running into the issue of *not having enough overall volume in my headphone mix*. The headphone volume is turned up all the way on the interface. Perhaps I can... throw a limiter or compressor on the Return Track to up the volume??

this is where my first reply came in. you could use a limiter.. hopefully that'll give you usable results.. if not get a cheap headphone amp.