Ableton Forum

Hello all, I am hoping someone can help me with this problem.

First I guess I should explain what I am doing and how I have it set up.We have a Firepod, 8 channels. I have two singers, two guitarists, one bassists and my drums taking up the 8 channels. We have the output of the Firepod going to our PA and the firewire of it going to my PC and Ableton doing the recording. We don't do any effects during recording, but change things after the fact.

Now the problem. I have been trying to send only the vocals thru the PA. With the size of my basement there is no need to have everything going thru the mains and monitors.

I was able to reduce the volume of the tracks in Ableton to lessen the output from the instruments, but I just want to silence them from the PA and allow only the two channels carrying vocals thru the PA.

Any and all suggestions are appreciated.

8 channels, all 8 taken up by your drums? I think you have a typo.

Send everything into Live, turn off direct monitoring (probably a fader knob on the font of the sound card). Turn down the volume on all the instruments except the mics.

hth if I understand...

Sorry, should have written that sentence better. No, drums take three of the channels, two vocals, 2 guitars and a bass take the other five channels. Sorry.

And sorry too, I'm quite the newb with Ableton, the Firepod, etc. Not sure what fader knob on the sound card you mean. The Firepod comes into the PC via a firewire cable. Does that help explain me a little better? Like I said I'm a newb and I'm probably not explaining it perfectly.

Check the MIX knob on the front panel of the firepod, that's a fader for the main outs. At one extreme is passes everything coming into it (your band), at the other extreme it only passes audio from the firewire connection, that's a Direct Monitor control.

For example, when I play guitar with Live I have a track in Live that records the guitar, but that track is turned all the way down because of audio latency. BUT I turn the direct monitor halfway up, so half the signal is the guitar hitting the sound card input, the other half is Live, without the guitar. A much simpler case than your situation.

play with that knob a bit, you'll see.

Thanks Tone. I'll certainly give it a try. I was hoping there was just a simple setting to exclude channels from the line out while still coming into Ableton and their channel. But your way sounds like my best option. And my singers will be happy they aren't fighting the instruments in the basement. I appreciate it!!!

Good point, my bad.

Send everthing into Live, but turn down the volume faders on the loud instruments, not the mics. Recording is pre-fader.

You could also route the singers' tracks to a separate out(s) other than Master and give them headphones.