Two headphone out solution please

[reflectingme]

Hi All

 

Here's a question I can't seem to fathom out.

 

When I do a piano and vocal recording with my daughter, I record the piano track first with her playing, she sings to this to keep her time, and I record the MIDI etc to a track in Logic. When we then work on the vocal track, I play the piano track back to her mixed together with the mic input so that she can hear herself singing, through to the headphones. However, this means that I can no longer hear what is being fed through to her headphones, nor can I hear her singing in the mix as it were. Of course, I can 'hear' her, as she is stood right next to me, but I cannot hear her with the piano mix because I can't play that mix out through my monitors as the microphone she sings into will pick up the output of those, as well as her voice.

 

Now, apart from having a dedicated and separate (and expensive) vocal booth/room, is there any way I can also route 'the mix' to say the output of the MacbookPro so I can use a second pair of headphones, or maybe there's a device I can chain between the Saffire Pro 14 output to monitors and the monitors themselves, that allows me to use two or three sets of headphones?

 

Can someone advise me please of how best I achieve this so I can hear the mixed piano and voice as it is being recorded.

 

Thanks

John

[Eriksimon]

In the Audio MIDI Setup utility you could create an (Aggregate) Multi Output, in which you aggregate the Macs built in out with the Focusrite main out. If you then choose this new Multi Out as output, sound will come from both physical outputs, so you can use two headphone sets. I use it myself, works great and simple.

 

[iStudio72]

Did your Saffire come with MixControl software? You can route a headphone mix (or several if required) using MixControl - check out the help menu and youtube for help on setting it up. Basically you send your tracks to a headphone bus in your DAW which is routed through the MixControl software before output through your Saffire.

 

I think that will do what you are asking anyway!

[CarlosUnderground]

Or, get a headphone splitter. Cost, $10 max, getting what you want, priceless!

[iStudio72]

Only problem with a headphone splitter is you will get the same mix through both headphones. With the MixControl software you can send different mixes to each headphone output. Just make as many headphone busses as you need and send the amount of each instrument/vocal that the listener requires. Tidy.

[reflectingme]

Thanks for this advice iStudio72, but on the Focusrite Saffire Pro audio unit I have there is only the single headphone out socket. I am looking for a solution that allows me to control output to two sets of headphones. I might have a try at aggregating the Macbook audio with the Saffire audio then I could use the headphone socket on the Mac.

[Darude]

In the Audio MIDI Setup utility you could create an (Aggregate) Multi Output, in which you aggregate the Macs built in out with the Focusrite main out. If you then choose this new Multi Out as output, sound will come from both physical outputs, so you can use two headphone sets. I use it myself, works great and simple.

What he said. You can route different things with different levels in Logic to different physical outputs, I do it by sending whatever I need to as many busses needed and those busses output to the different (headphones) outputs.