Owner's Manual

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Professional active monitors and professional power amplifiers will generally have balanced inputs.
When mixing, you can connect several pairs of additional speakers (mid-field, near-field, etc.) to
pairs of outputs and use Focusrite Control to route your mix to the different outputs as desired, to
check your mix on the different types of speaker.
NOTE: You run the risk of creating an audio feedback loop if loudspeakers are active at the same time
as a microphone! We recommend that you always turn off (or turn down) monitoring loudspeakers
while recording, and use headphones when overdubbing.
Working with surround sound
Because the Scarlett 18i20 is equipped with ten line outputs, it is ideally suited for use when working
in multichannel sound formats – LCRS, 5.1 surround or 7.1 surround, for example. Using Focusrite
Control, simply route each DAW monitor output to the desired speaker.
The example below shows how you would connect the six loudspeakers in a 5.1 surround monitoring
arrangement.
Left (L)
Rear Left (RL) Rear Right (RR)
Centre (C)
Right (R)
(Sub Bass) LFE
Note - Amplifiers not shown
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The table below summarises how some common multichannel formats could be mapped to the
Scarlett 18i20’s outputs for monitoring purposes, as configured within the DAW:
FORMAT OUT 1 OUT 2 OUT 3 OUT 4 OUT 5 OUT 6 OUT 7 OUT 8
Quad L R RL RR
2.1 L R LFE
5.1 L R C LFE RL RR
7.1 L R C LFE SL SR RL RR
RL/RR = Rear Left/Rear Right; SL/SR = Side Left/Side Right; LFE = sub-bass channel