Hi friends:
I'm the technical half of an electronic/acoustic duo working out of Live 12 as our primary performance and mixing platform for live performance.
We have a standard Ableton Live session set up with all our routing, monitor mixes, house levels, effects/EQ, and basic tracks.
We're using a Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 as our audio I/O device, with individual monitor mixes out of the unit's dual headphone outputs.
In performance, we're using a 2020 M1 MacBook Pro. During the week, my musical partner is using a desktop Mac to rehearse at home.
However, when we open the session on either his home Mac or my MBP, we get wildly different monitor levels.
In both cases, we're using the same hardware, the Scarlett, with the same routing and level snapshots. No other changes have been made to the Live session. The only variable is the computer they're being pushed through. We can dial it in perfectly at home on the desktop and then get to the rehearsal space and have to completely rework our monitor levels.
I would think, with the same I/O and the same exact files, there should be zero discrepancy between the two. But I'm constantly having to fix and adjust things as we move the master session back and forth between the two computers. Is there something I'm overlooking as to why this might be happening?
The clear solution would be to buy a performance laptop that gets used exclusively for both performances and rehearsals, and remains "hard tethered" to the same gear, session, files, etc., and never opened or used for any other purpose. But let's just say I'm not there at the moment economically.
Same hardware, different computers, levels wildly variable
Re: Same hardware, different computers, levels wildly variable
Interesting observation which got be to check out what happens on my Mac Mini M1 with Ableton 12 and a Fireface UC.
I started playing a project and then was able to turn to volume up and down with the volume keys on the mac keyboard.
Next I opened the Systems Settings Sound app and saw that the Output Volume control was controlled by the keyboard keys and the System Settings app controlled the monitor volume.
What I haven't tested is whether the System Setting Sound App controls the level output on all channels of the UC or just channels 1-2.
This might be a place to start looking for differences in configuration between the too computers.
I started playing a project and then was able to turn to volume up and down with the volume keys on the mac keyboard.
Next I opened the Systems Settings Sound app and saw that the Output Volume control was controlled by the keyboard keys and the System Settings app controlled the monitor volume.
What I haven't tested is whether the System Setting Sound App controls the level output on all channels of the UC or just channels 1-2.
This might be a place to start looking for differences in configuration between the too computers.