Headphonerouting in DP9

[lito]

Hi,
how do you route the tracks in a headphone maybe for 3 musicans in DP9 ?

[Shooshie]

Hi,
how do you route the tracks in a headphone maybe for 3 musicans in DP9 ?

One good way is with a Behringer "Powerplay Pro-8," which is an 8 channel headphone amp, allowing 2 sources from which each channel can select to monitor. That's what I happen to be using at the moment, and I'm liking it very much. It's not a high-end headphone amp, but is perfect for studio situations. Each of the 8 independent headphone amps within the single-rack unit can also be connected to an independent source, meaning you really have your choice of as many as 8 sources if you connect each one to a separate stereo channel. (at least, it appears to work that way, based on the extra input on each of the 8 channels on the back of the unit. So far I've only used the primary two stereo channels)

Another way is to connect headphones to each channel of an audio interface, such as the MOTU 896mk3. To connect directly requires some special cables and/or adapters to take two XLR outputs and combine them into a stereo ¼" jack or stereo mini-jack. I wrote something about that a while back. If you want to go this way, ask me to tell you what cables I bought to make this work. I also use those cables to connect four channels of XLR output to the two main sources on the Behringer headphone amplifier. (four channels = 2 stereo channels)

It was quite an exercise to find the right cables and adapters for this. I think that's why you don't read about it very often; the difficulty of getting the hardware to connect everything stops all but the most determined of users. Of course, you could just solder some cabling together into your own dedicated connections, but the cables and adapters exist to make this work.

As for the routing in DP, it's a simple matter of creating an Aux track for each headphone output. How you get your mix to the Aux tracks depends on how you do things, but you can use a single bus to input into all of them, or multiple busses to give each player a particular mix. Output each headphone Aux to a different stereo-pair.

Alternatively you can use CueMix in MOTU interfaces to create headphone mixes for each player. It's not the most intuitive thing you'll ever do, but once you get it figured out, it works fairly well.

So... the answer is a combination of things: cables, adapters, hardware, CueMix (or just DP), Auxes, busses, routing, and of course... headphones. I recommend the Behringer headphone amp, just to help simplify things.

Shooshie

[lito]

As for the routing in DP, it's a simple matter of creating an Aux track for each headphone output. How you get your mix to the Aux tracks depends on how you do things, but you can use a single bus to input into all of them, or multiple busses to give each player a particular mix. Output each headphone Aux to a different stereo-pair.

@shooshie, thanks a lot for your explanations ! So for me it should be the best way to create different busses ( as you wrote above) to my samson headphone amp ( 4 inputs) because from my interface ( RME FF800) I could connect 3 outputs to the headphone amp and the separate headphone output from the interface to the 4th input from the haedphone amp. I think this is possible, it's right ?

[Shooshie]

As for the routing in DP, it's a simple matter of creating an Aux track for each headphone output. How you get your mix to the Aux tracks depends on how you do things, but you can use a single bus to input into all of them, or multiple busses to give each player a particular mix. Output each headphone Aux to a different stereo-pair.

@shooshie, thanks a lot for your explanations ! So for me it should be the best way to create different busses ( as you wrote above) to my samson headphone amp ( 4 inputs) because from my interface ( RME FF800) I could connect 3 outputs to the headphone amp and the separate headphone output from the interface to the 4th input from the haedphone amp. I think this is possible, it's right ?

Yes, I think so. Sounds like that 4th headphone out probably mirrors the main-out pair, right? So that gives you headphone monitoring without sacrificing the outputs to your main monitors.

SO, you'd create 4 Aux tracks, then set their outputs to the hardware tracks to which you'll be connecting the headphone amps. If you want to do unique mixes in each headphone, you can use Sends to output independent tracks to the headphone busses. You can add sends until you have enough for all 4 headphones if you want. Of course, you can control the volume of sends independently of the main outputs (faders). For each headphone Aux input, you'll need a bus. That bus can be used by any number of sends, so you can put exactly the tracks you want on each headphone, or you can just use the main out and send it to each headphone Aux... whatever you want.

I'm just describing the obvious to some people. I don't know your familiarity with DP or with DAWs or recording in general, which is why I'm adding a lot of detail here that you may take for granted if you already know this stuff.

Ask anything you wish,

Shoosh

[lito]

SO, you'd create 4 Aux tracks, then set their outputs to the hardware tracks to which you'll be connecting the headphone amps. If you want to do unique mixes in each headphone, you can use Sends to output independent tracks to the headphone busses. You can add sends until you have enough for all 4 headphones if you want. Of course, you can control the volume of sends independently of the main outputs (faders). For each headphone Aux input, you'll need a bus. That bus can be used by any number of sends, so you can put exactly the tracks you want on each headphone

This is the right way for me
Once more thanks a lot shooshie !

[Daniel Dworsky]

Wonderful clear explanations. Thank You.

[cbergm7210]

Don't forget your FF800 has a headphone driver / amp that you can mix custom mixes with through the RME Totalmix software.

[stubbsonic]

I have an FF800 but haven't had to do more than two headphone sends (not mixes).

You might be able to use the Mac's built-in for one out, and the FF800 headphone out for a second, and then my mixer's headphone out for a 3rd-- if you don't want to buy another box.

[mwilloam]

Haven't red all the replies but I'll offer my setup. I run DP with an 828mk3 and Cuemix with a 5 person group. For all rehearsals and live shows we monitor ourselves, a click and some backing tracks through headphones only. Using Cuemix I setup a mix(stereo analog output pair) for each person. I run a basic Hosa Y cable 2ts->trs -> stereo inputs on a Samson 4 channel headphone amp(i use 828 headphone jack for 5th) and then just regular Radio Shack extension cables to headphones of choice. The live inputs going into the 828 get mixed, per person, in Cuemix but but the nice thing is that in the DP project that's playing back I setup 5 busses each for both click and backing tracks and can individually adjust either for any person. Works really well. People walking by our rehearsal space probably wonder why 5 people enter and only drums are heard. Makes for a cleaner sound live too, albeit a decent amount more setup time.