Ableton Forum

Yo peeps,

First off let me say I am a recent purchaser after my cracked version expired. Genius marketing scheme on Ableton's part.

I use Live to DJ, but I'm big on controls - I just don't like using a mouse.
I use it with an MPC and an Evolution X-session, which have been great so far.

Now, thanks to Live, I don't really need to use headphones when I DJ, as I know everything is lined up to a tee, but occasionally if I want to, say, warp mark a brand new song live on stage while another one is playing, I couldn't do that without a method of cueing. What kind of stuff can I use to "pre-listen" to my Live trax?
Up to now I've been using a USB mixer along with the aforementioned MIDI control gear, but it's only got 2 channels, so I don't think I can cue with that.

Advice/insight would be appreciated.

Someone ought to know!!!

You need a soundcard with more than 2 outs and to look up cueing in the manual...super easy.

Crap. So in my situation, I've got to start all over again, as far as the soundcard goes.


Any suggestions?

Don't know what computer you're using, cueing requires 2 sets of outs by default. Depending on your needs/budget/setup there are various solutions at all levels.

i bought the fast track pro which lets me assign the cue out straight to my headphones but i've had issues with that card (m-audio!!) and have yet to use it live I wouldn't recommend it as an option

i've ended up using my mbox for all live shows as i can rely on it but alas no cue

This is the ghetto way to do it, but it works ok.

buy one of those inexpensive USB headphones, logitech make a couple. They dont sound great, but they do install as a separate USB audio device, which you can then use as another stereo output, and route the cue to it.

done.

I thought Ableton can't support multiple audio devices? You are talking about this usb headphones as a seperate audio ouput. In the FAQ it says multiple times that the software can't support multiple audio devices.

Have you tried this method ? did it actually work?

Just curious because i wanted to try and use the cheap soundcard output on my laptop and could not make it work along with my Alesis sound device.

Bryce

im using mine on the laptop right now. ive got the internal soundcard running through asio4all, and Lives master running out the main headphone socket.

plug in the usb headphones, enable the outs in the prefs, switch the solo/cue button to cue, and click the headphone icon on whatever track you want cueing on.

yep, ASIO4ALL really does do it all

asio4all isnt doing any special in this case though. this should work with any devices asio driver.

but yeah, it made my stock laptop usable without an external interface, and damn is the latency low.

oops, got that wrong.

ive just tested this with my desktop, that has an audiophile 2496 card. and i cannot assign the cue to the usb headphones.

so i guess Asio4all on the laptop, is allowing any audio devices to be consolidated into one sort of virtual device. and normal asio drivers (made uniquely per card) will not.

ive only ever used this on the laptop so its never been an issue.

damn, so i suppose this is a dead end unless you want to specifically use the built in soundcard, with asio4all.

a lot of people use asio4all instead of the manufacturers drivers for this reason (multiple o/p devices)...and sometimes just because they're more stable!

normally (on windows) you cant have 2 or more soundcards accessed by live at the same time without asio4all. on mac it's not really an issue

the downside to that though is that you then you lose access to your driver specific functions, like monitor mixer etc.

did you do this on a mac or pc? im very inteseted in pissing around with it, but i have a powerbook.

do you mean usb headphones as in the skype type things?