Ableton Forum

Hi forum

I wanna use Live for my DJ sets. Bought the Novation LaunchControl XL and this works all like a charm.

I'm using a Macbook Pro which has only one headphone jack (3.5mm).

But to select sounds, samples and effects while playing a track, I need an external sound-device to plugin my headphones and pre-listen.

I read that Macbooks actually have a pretty decent soundcard, so I thought I'd use the built in headphone jack to connect to the mixer in the club and add a USB-device to plugin my headphones.

What's a decent device that actually works with a Mac?

Or is this setup not recommendable and you guys know something better?

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

Hey man!
I’m a amateur dabbler so take what I say with a grain of salt.
I have a focusrite 2nd gen 6i6, which was cheap and is great. there are lots of good cheap interfaces.
It took me ages to work out cueing (listening in headphones) on it. Mainly cuz I’m lazy and it’s not important to my workflow.

1. Preferences —> audio —> choose the Scarlett as input/output device

2. Configure output routing in preferences
Set up output 1-2 (linked stereo) as monitor (ie what will go to the club speakers. At home to hear it you will need something to plug this into - doesn’t need to be fancy but you will need a dual trs -3.5mm stereo cable, or if you get monitors some trs-trs or trs-xlr cables depending on what they take. All useful to have. Also , if you’re getting cables get some rca-trs just in case that’s what the club runs (a lot of turntable mixers output rca).

3. Set up outputs 3/4 (stereo link)and rename “cue out” or similar

4. Go to the cue area in the master track, change the audio out to output 3/4
Then: in the scarlet mixer, put daw 3/4 as the output to headphones.

On the Scarlett the headphone outputs are not independently assignable, so you lose outputs 3/4. Also, what took me soo long was that there are 2 headphone outputs on the scarlet 6i6, the on on the left Mirrors outputs 1/2 only, and the one on the right only monitor 3/4. I spent weeks plugging into output on the left, then tried on the right and it worked immediately. That’s my top tip.

You can also route from the actual trs audio outputs on the back, to do that would need a converter from dual 1/4 TRS to either female 1/4 stereo or female 3.5mm stereo depending on your headphones/adapters on hand. I find it easier to use the headphone jack.

5. Finally select the cue/solo button on the master track.
Voila! Done.

Now any track you push cue button on (where solo is) will go to the headphones. Turn off the track output if you only want it to go only to headphones.

I have an external midi controller that means I don’t need to use the mouse to cue.
If the launchpad has solo buttons, they will also cue
When in cue mode but don’t forget to mute the output to master as well.

I hope that helps for one possible set up.

You will find you can’t use the Mac out port while using an external audio interface, so make sure you get one that either has independent assignable headphone port, or has more than 2 full stereo channels out (ie 4 outputs as most will call it) or you will be no better off.

I haven’t tried routing Bluetooth headphones as the cue but I suspect it won’t work as mac soundcard has only one channel output as far as I know.... but I may be wrong about that.


Good luck!!
Sean

"Turn off the track output if you only want it to go only to headphones. "

That's key.

Apparently a lot of us, me for example, assumed that the Cue function sends a track output to Cue exclusively but it does not.

You must click the track's big square number button to prevent it from sending its output to the not-Cue output.

serenace wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 14, 2020 6:44 pm

You will find you can’t use the Mac out port while using an external audio interface

You should be able to if you combine the built-in sound output and the interface output(s) into a single composite device in the Mac’s Audio/MIDI Setup application. Though it’s easier to use the same interface for all outputs and avoids any odd issues that might arise with latency settings.