Motu M4 - send click track to headphones only?

Hardware
1

Hi,
I have a Motu M4 and for a couple of songs I’m using backing tracks where I want to use the headphone output to include one version with an additional click/guide vocal part…but obviously not have that go to FOH.

So in my audio player I have 2 versions of the backing track:

  1. Audience backing track edition - set to output 1 and 2
  2. Keyboardist headphone part with click + guide parts - set to outputs 3 and 4

When I look in the outputs of the Motu from the audio player I cannot select ‘headphones’. (On my old Presonus I was able to manually select the headphone output.)

How should I set it up that the audience hears channels 1 and 2…and I hear 3 and 4?

Or do I need to reverse my thinking and send the front of house to 3 and 4…and my personal mix to 1 and 2? ie. Is the headphone output on Motu M4 locked to just 1 and 2? Can I set the Motu M4 to just monitor 3 and 4 in the headphone jack?

Does that make sense? How should I best achieve this?
Thanks…bit confused about all this!

2

1. Both headphone outputs mirror the signal on the MONITOR 1-2 outputs (on the rear panel). Engage the 3-4 switch to monitor LINE OUT 3-4 instead on this headphone output. This allows you to set up a separate mix from your host software for this headphone output.

This I found in the user manual

3

Thanks. For some reason I couldn’t get the 3/4 switch to monitor the output of just 3/4.

I think that is meant to monitor just the inputs on 3/4…but doesn’t affect the output you are monitoring.

But the long and short is I need to reverse my thinking.

I use 3/4 for the front of house mix…so make sure all my Gig Performer routing goes to that.

Then I use 1/2 for the monitor…which now makes perfect sense…

thanks…still learning…and yes need to read the manual more. Thank you!

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4

Yes, the switch on the front toggles the input to monitor like you discoverd.

I route my FOH mix out 3/4 and my personal monitor mix out 1/2 and send metronome out 1/2 the same way.

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5

Thanks Brandon… yes it all makes perfect sense now… and works great… Just had to go through all my racks and change the wiring to 3/4 FOH…and anything for just me to 1/2… but now am set.

Looking at the back I can see now what the ‘monitor’ all means! Just learning my terminology and workflow… Thanks!

Loving Gig Performer. Have also got Mobile Sheets working beautifully to auto change through set list too.

Thanks!

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6

one quick tip…

… if you use the global rackspace for all your i/o… you could have changed those channel assignments in one place and not in every rackspace.

My ins and outs all are routed in global and i use the local->global and global->local to map these channels though GP.

5 Likes
7

That’s a great tip Brandon. thanks… will check that out for future times!

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