896mk3 Phones Config.

[jackasspenguin]

I can't seem to get my phones output to work the way I think it should work. If I set it to phones, it doesn't work at all. If I have it set to mirror the main out. It will only be as loud as the master volume.

I don't know what I need to do here. But I do know what I want to happen.
I need to be able to turn my main speakers down and still be able to monitor with my headphones for recording. I can't figure out how to do that!

I'm using Sonar x1. I thought I should set a buss up or something but I'm an idiot and I don't know what the hell I'm doing. It's just not coming together for me in my brain. How can I route my mains to a buss, turn them down and still have a buss I can monitor with phones? I don't know it's just not coming together for me.

Help, help me please! I stupid, gots the mad cow disease!

[FutureLegends]

The way I've done it (using a 828mk3 w/ Digital Performer though) is I put a send on each track that goes to the Phones 1-2 output (or via bus to there). The send is set to post fader so the mix in the cans mirror the one in the main outs unless I change anything. Works fine for me.

[jackasspenguin]

So, in every audio track you have to set up a send to the headphones buss? I'll have to try that but it seems like the long way around.

What if you set up the Phones to Main Out in the MOTU software? Although, when I tried to do that, when I plugged the headphones into the unit I either didn't get any output or it was post Mains meaning if the mains was turned all the way down I didn't get anything out of the phones. Or was only as loud as the master volume was.

But, if both the Master and Phones was set to Mains 1-2, In software the phones would act just like the master? Basically there would be 2 mains independently from each other but the same thing. The only difference would be the output from the phones would go to just that, the headphones and the Master would go to the mains?

I just don't get why the software doesn't automatically sense a Phones output like it senses Master and Mains. I would even settle for being able to change the Master Buss to Phones. But there doesn't seem to be a way to do that that I can find.

[FutureLegends]

Well, if you make a template you'll only have to do it once then all your new projects will be set. I find this to be preferable anyway cause I usually want a slightly different mix in the headphones than the actual mix I'm working on.

In Digital Performer you can easily re-route the audio to different outputs so there it would be possible to change the main mix to headphones if you wanted to. Don't know about Sonar.

But it's well worth taking the time to set up a template the way you like it though.

[jackasspenguin]

So in theory, that would be to use sends right? Yeah, I see about using the template. I had to make a blank slate type template the way I wanted to use Sonar then just opened and worked off that project each time I began a project.

Wouldn't bounce all audio to 1 track be an option? Then i would have one audio track of the entire mix. Then send that to output Phones? Then create a phones buss or visa versa? Then if I solo my mix track nothing would come from the mains and only the phones out would be outputting the audio?

I really don't know how many audio tracks and soft synths I'd be using in a project to set something up in a template. Then again when it's late at night and i don't want to use the mains all together it would be nice to have the option to simply not use without switching them off and on all the time.