Live Click Track Set Up

[psycho_monkey]

Originally Posted by maxforce

Hello,

My band are using a click track to play live, only the drummer hears this. We are playing with the idea of using some backing tracks to fill our sound out. One way is to send the click track to the left channel and the backing track to the right, trouble is the drummer wants to hear the click in both his ears.

Is there a way around this? as simple as possible please

Equipment i could use, ideally i would like to just take the laptop, if not i also have a Focusrite 2i2.

Regards

A small mixer with a headphone amp - use aux sends for the pa and the stereo out for the drummer.

Your Focusrite has about a million routing options with the software - can you not have the headphone out give a monitor send in mono, and click/ bd king track left and right to the main outs? You could do this on the pro 24...

[Kiwi]

If you are literally talking about a click/clack type of click track - I think that is cruel and unusual punishment for the drummer. I have to use backing tracks, but I like to program them so all the musical cues are present in the actual audio track which the audience hears, and therefore don't have to be hidden. For example - you can start a song off with a keyboard riff or arpeggios, or a telephone eq drum loop, or (insert - use imagination). The drummer should be able to play off that track just as though he was playing off a leading musician. It means he/she doesn't have to wear headphones and look cut off from the band.

But assuming you want to go there, just treat left and right as seperate mono tracks. Use a mono headphone (or use a mono to stereo converter cable). Or use a small mixer as you headphone amp, and that will pan the mono input to both left and right.

[maxforce]

The drummer likes having the click nice and loud so he can keep to it... Could i use a left/right splitter cable, and stick this on the side of the click track to get it coming out of both buds? 3.5mm Stereo Plug to 3.5mm Mono Socket Adaptor : 3.5mm Stereo Jack Adaptors : Maplin Electronics

[maxforce]

or could i just use this? stereo to left mono right mono? http://www.maplin.co.uk/3.5mm-stereo...splitter-43086

[Kiwi]

Are you using the headphone out of the Focusrite as the headphone amp? If so, you would have to isolate the left or right hand side as your mono signal. You might be able to insert a TS plug into the TRS jack to get this - or you might need to use a cable or adapter as you suggest just to get the mono signal you need. Then, you need to drive both sides of your phones from this mono signal - so possibly you might need two cables or adapters to get the job done.

This would be using just one side of the headphone amp. I'm not sure whether the adapter wires the headphones in series or parallel - i'm guessing series. This would mean the impedance doubles, so the amplifier would draw less current so it won't be as loud as the normal two amplifiers driving normal impedance phones.

Is it possible to set up the headphone mix independantly from the line outs? That would require it to have 4 dacs instead of 2 - not sure how they have built this - maybe that's not possible. But if it is, simply use your DAW software to route the click track to the headphones and the other tracks to the line out. But my guess is the headphone out mirrors the line out, so you are back to using it as dual mono.

Can you send audio to you laptop soundcard as well as the Focusrite? If that is possible, you could have a spare couple of outputs. They may not be in sync, if they have different latencies. But you could use a delay plugin to compensate for that.

Or get a bigger interface - probably cheaper than buying a mixer or headphone amp.



Read the manual

[maxforce]

Thank you, i think iv taken what i need out of your posts cheers

[drumzalicious]

you could consider an interface with 2 headphone output mixes. possibly finding an mbox 2 pro online would work. I used one for the longest. Using output 3-4 for the drummer.