What device can do this....

Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2007 9:03 am

Hi, I am looking for an affordable unit that can let me do what I hope the image describes clearly. Basically I want to be able to play along with tracks recorded in Ableton Live and record what I'm playing at the same time, while hearing it all.

The key I think is the guitar sound has to be split in the device and output with the live tracks as my computer would have too much delay if I tried to do it through the comp. I almost had something like this working in a standard mixer but I couldn't record and hear the guitar at the same time.

Any helps greatly appreciated as I am new to the hardware side of things

Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2007 12:39 pm

most sound cards can do this !
have a look at http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/page/shop/browse/category_id/9f73a8ba694fa4af34e42f1936f270a5

thats in £ though..

look along the coloumn on the left
you can have internal cards, Firewire cards, Usb Cards.. and being soundcards doesnt just mean like a graphics card inside your computer, it can be a box, or a mixer, keyboards etc.

for what you want to do, youd be looking at something very simple, id say £100 ish or even less

youd probably want 1 or 2 guitar inputs, and a headphone output. very simple !! but it also depends one what kind of quality you want from it, if you dont really mind then it will be cheap, but for proffesional quality its probably going to cost looooaaddss more !

in concern to setting it up, you would just set your software to send the output to your interface ( soundcard ) and it would come out through the headphone someway or another !

Hope that helps

Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007 11:08 am

It depends what your budget is, but in my opinion if you can afford it go for the M-Audio Projectmix I/O. It has been custom made exactly for this kind of thing - just plug your guitar into an input on the desk and set up your routing on the corresponding channel in Live. The analogue signal is converted into the digital domain and routed back out of your speakers at light speed via a Firewire 400 connection.

I run an entire live band consisting of 9 inputs plus realtime backing track, click track and FXs using an MBP running Ableton Live 6 and a Projectmix, and it works perfectly. You can pick up a Projectmix nowadays for around £800.

Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007 11:18 am

yer... ? you dont need to go and blow £600 ( actually £700 ) on a project mix just for something as simple as this person needs.. if you want a built in control surface aswel, then yer thats good.. but you dont need to spend that much.. this person needs 1 guitar input. not 9. all they would need to do, is record there drums.. then record the guitar over it, but with the ouput for abelton coming into there device ! simple..

Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 5:52 am

Shufflelot is new to the hardware side of things, and between us we have presented two options - low budget and mid/high spec. It will be up to shufflelot's personal finances what option they opt for. In my opinion it's always best to have knowledge of a range of choices.

If you can afford it, and you're serious about making music, go for the higher end gear. If you're more of a hobbyist and on a restricted budget, go for the entry level gear.

Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 10:39 am

good point ! my bad..

Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 9:22 am

Yah definetly trying to stay in the low end for now but thanks for the info.

Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 10:21 am

Well, just superficially looking at your diagram, I think I have a cheap solution for you.

The top unit is called the M-Patch 1, the bottom is the slightly more advanced M-Patch 2 made by a company called SM Audio.. and it goes for $75 for the cheaper unit (best priced I've seen) to $150 for the better unit. The M-Patch 2 is harder to get hold of though, but it should be ideal for what you need.

You can use the M-Patch-1, but I think you'd need a cheap headphone amp to attack to one of the outputs.

The M-Patch 2 has a headphone amplifier circuit and attentuation knob, with a 1/4inch headphone jack built into it. It also has the advantage in that it can output to both A and B outputs simultaneously, or just A or just B.... whereas the M-Patch 1 unit only does A or B. So this better unit is more flexible.

The units are basically a 2-in, 2-out routing matrix which lets you switch between any combination thereof.... and coincidentally you have a 2-in and 2-out set up in your diagram... so I would think that should work just fine and dandy for you.

Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 11:12 am

I think thats almost it, except I would need to independently control what inputs the 2 outputs use so if I have
Input A(Guitar) and
Input B(Ableton drums,recorded tracks,etc)
I would want to be able to set Output 1(run into computer) to only use Input A and
Output 2(headphones) to use both A and B
so I think it gets just a little more complicated than your suggestions but I'll look into them furthur, maybe theres another version with that extra control (M-Patch 3?!)
thanks

Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 12:13 pm

shufflelot wrote:

I would want to be able to set Output 1(run into computer) to only use Input A and Output 2(headphones) to use both A and B
so I think it gets just a little more complicated than your suggestions but

I'll look into them furthur, maybe theres another version with that extra control (M-Patch 3?!)thanks

Yeah, okay. I spent the last 1/2 hour drawing diagrams to see if I could get that M-Patch idea to work by configuring it in every way conceivable including running the signals backwards through the unit..... but your totally right.... it won't work. I'm slightly stumped, I feel dumb.

What kind of mixer do you have?

You should be able to do it with an inexpensive mixer though provided you do a little creative routing with the AUX sends or whatnot.

Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 3:28 pm

the more I think about it this should be relatively easy with simple hardware, maybe I can just combine the m-patch and mixer, or 2 m-patches if I can't find a mixer that lets me split one of the channels back out into my computer.

I had a shitty radioshack mixer I left behind in my last move and I tried outputting (aux send?)one of the channels into the comp while using the main output but it didn't work, but it should have been that easy shouldn't it?

thanks

Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2007 2:19 am

You're overthinking this. There are dozens of interfaces that will accomplish what you want. If you need a simple interface that will allow you to record onto one track while listening to another well seriously there are plenty. What is your budget first of all. As for software. Live is all you need. It will allow you to multitrack. If you find that you are having a problem because your drum track keeps getting recorded along with your guitar track, it's because you've probably got a setting on your computer that records the stereo output instead of the line input. It's all about routing and when you're dealing with a DAW there's the routing in software as well as hardware.

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