User Manual

CHAPTER 13. ROUTING AND I/O 165
For every track that can play clips, the In/Out section has the same layout:
 The upper chooser pair (Audio/MIDI From) selects the track's input. Audio tracks
have an audio input, and MIDI tracks have a MIDI input. Return tracks receive their
input from the respective sends.
 The Monitor radio button selects the monitor mode: the conditions under which the
track's input is heard through the track.
 The lower chooser pair (Audio/MIDI To) selects the track's output. All tracks have
audio outputs, except for MIDI tracks without instruments. Remember that instruments
convert MIDI to audio.
Within a chooser pair, the upper chooser selects the signal category (Ext., for instance,
for external connections via an audio or MIDI interface), and is called the Input/Output Type
chooser. If this signal type offers sub-selections or channels, they are available from the
lower chooser, or the Input/Output Channel chooser. In our Ext. example, these would
be the individual audio/MIDI inputs and outputs.
13.1 Monitoring
Monitoring, in the context of Live, means passing a track's input signal on to the track's
output. Suppose you have set up an audio track to receive its input signal from a guitar.
Monitoring then means that the signal from your live guitar playing actually reaches the
track's output, via the track's device chain. If the track's output is set to Master, you can
hear the guitar signal, processed by whatever effects are used (and delayed by whatever
latency the audio hardware interface incurs), over your speakers.
The In/Out section offers, for every audio track and MIDI track, a Monitor radio button with
the following three options:
 The default Auto-monitoring setting does the right thing for most straightforward
recording applications: Monitoring is on when the track is armed (record-enabled),
but monitoring is inhibited as long as the track is playing clips.