NerdingOut Archives - Audiomovers

Creating aggregate devices on Mac is a brilliant way of combining audio sources to be used within apps that work with Core Audio. This is a very powerful tool. However, when wishing to change audio devices quickly and on the fly, there is room for improvement.

Using our tool OMNIBUS, users can utilise any audio device in their system without the need to create aggregate devices in audio midi setup or having to change their DAW’s playback engine to different aggregate devices for different audio device configurations.

OMNIBUS’ intuitive routing matrix allows you to mix and match audio devices on your system to make the most out of your recording setup. This could be combining multiple audio interfaces, synthesisers that support USB audio streaming and much more.

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Step 1: Getting set up

Firstly, you’ll need to download and authorise the OMNIBUS application. Upon opening the OMNIBUS application you’ll be prompted to either authorise or try your 7-day demo. Follow the authorisation steps and you’re ready to start routing.

1. For routing audio into your DAW, you’ll first need to select one of the OMNIBUS virtual drivers as your DAW’s playback engine depending on your I/O needs. OMNIBUS’ A and B drivers have 16 channels of I/O, C has 32 and D has 64 channels of I/O. For this example, OMNIBUS C is being used.

Setting one of OMNIBUS’ virtual drivers as your DAW’s playback engine means that essentially what would have been your audio interface is now that OMNIBUS driver, allowing you to route audio in from multiple sources and send your DAW’s audio to any audio device connected to your system. This makes it far easier to route designated audio input channels to your DAW. Essentially, turning your device into a virtual patchbay.

2. Similar to your DAW’s playback Engine, now set your Mac’s audio device as another one of the OMNIBUS Drivers. Let’s choose OMNIBUS A for this. Now all your desktop audio will be passing through OMNIBUS A.

3. Now, let’s route channels 1 and 2 from OMNIBUS A (Desktop audio) and channels 1 and 2 from OMNIBUS C (DAW audio) to your designated monitor outputs. In this case, a UAD Apollo interface outputs 1 and 2. Now both your DAW’s audio and desktop audio will be travelling to your chosen monitor outputs. This could also be any audio output destination on your device such as your Mac’s speakers, the Zoom audio device or a combination of audio output destinations.

Step 2: Routing in the application

For this example, we’ll be combining multiple audio devices into our DAW of choice.

1. You can start off in the OMNIBUS device list and routing matrix. Here you can see all visible audio devices connected to your machine. You will notice at the top of the device list are the 4 OMNIBUS drivers. Followed by all other audio devices on your system.

2. As OMNIBUS C is our DAW’s playback engine, you will need to route any audio device you wish to use in your DAW to a designated track in OMNIBUS C. Let’s start off with our Mac’s desktop audio as we already have this passing through OMNIBUS A. Simply route channels 1 and 2 from OMNIBUS A to whatever channels you wish to receive your desktop audio from. For this example, channels 10 and 11 are being used. Now in your DAW, you will be able to record audio from your DAW straight into your session by setting up an audio track to your selected channel inputs.

Any audio interface connected to your device can also be used in conjunction as well. In this example, we have a MODU 6-channel interface as well as a Focusrite 2i2 connected up together. In this example, 6 channels from MODU 6 are travelling to channels 1-6 and 2 channels from our Focusrite 2i2 are travelling into channels 7 and 8 of OMNIBUS C.

Once you’re finished with your audio routing, you can navigate to the snapshots tab, create a new snapshot and save your routing configuration to be used whenever you wish.

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“OMNIBUS makes complex audio routing easy whether you’re an audio professional or enthusiast. Now with OMNIBUS 2.0, there is hardware input support and a new and much-improved user interface for greater flexibility. “

IGOR MAXYMENKO

AUDIOMOVERS COFOUNDER
Using multiple audio devices in a DAW session can be a gruelling back-and-forth process, as DAWs will only support one audio device as their playback engine.

When you need to switch between devices for bringing in or sending out audio from your DAW and external audio devices, the experience can be frustrating.

Our recent update to OMNIBUS now allows you to utilise both virtual and hardware inputs from any audio device connected to your Mac.

In this article, we’ll be discussing using multiple USB audio microphones and audio interfaces within your DAW using OMNIBUS 2.0. This context is a great use case for anyone getting started in podcasting or recording with a DAW but who may also be struggling with not having enough audio inputs from their audio interface.

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Step 1: Getting set up

As mentioned earlier, OMNIBUS 2 supports hardware audio inputs, allowing you to connect any audio device to your DAW of choice through OMNIBUS.

1. First, navigate to audio settings in your DAW of choice and select one of the OMNIBUS drivers as your DAW’s playback engine. Once set up, all audio travelling in or out of your DAW will have to be routed through OMNIBUS. For this example, OMNIBUS B is selected.

2. Once you’re set up with your playback, you’ll need to route your DAW’s output to your designated monitor outputs in OMNIBUS. For this example, we’re using external headphones.

Simply scroll along the routing matrix until you find your audio destination device and route your DAW’s audio to your output destination. In this case, OMNIBUS B channels 1 and 2 are travelling to channels 1 and 2 to our external headphones output. Now we can hear our DAW’s audio through the external headphones. This doesn’t have to be for just one audio device. You can route to as many audio output destinations as you see fit.

Step 2: Routing in the application

Now it’s time to move on to routing inputs into your DAW. Combining multiple audio devices has never been easier. For this example, we’ll combine our Macbook Pro’s built-in microphone, a UAD Apollo Interface audio interface, and two virtual inputs from OMNIBUS from an incoming LISTENTO stream.

To simplify navigating the OMNIBUS routing matrix, hide audio devices with the toggle on the device list, freeing up space in the routing matrix by removing unwanted devices.

As OMNIBUS B is our DAWs playback engine, any audio input routed to a designated OMNIBUS B channel will now show up on that channel in your DAW.

1. Let’s start by routing the audio interface into our DAW. Navigate to your designated audio interface on the audio inputs side of OMNIBUS’ routing matrix and locate channels 1 and 2. Route channels 1 and 2 from this interface into channels 1 and 2 of OMNIBUS B. Now channels 1 and 2 of our audio interface will travel through OMNIBUS into channels 1 and 2 of our DAW.

2. As mentioned earlier, we have a LISTENTO stream coming in through the LISTENTO app that we also want to record. The LISTENTO app’s output is set to OMNIBUS A channels 1 and 2. Now audio being received from the LISTENTO app will travel into OMNIBUS A’s channels 1 and 2. Now in OMNIBUS, route channels 1 and 2 from OMNIBUS A into channels 3 and 4 into OMNIBUS B.

3. Finally, you can route your built-in microphone into our session. Navigate to the built-in microphone in the device list and route channel 1 from the built-in microphone to Channel 5 of OMNIBUS B.

Now all of our devices are routed into our DAW, we can move on to setting up our DAW.

Step 3: Recording in your DAW

As our incoming audio is all mono microphone signals, we only need to create mono audio tracks.

1. Let’s create five mono audio tracks and cascade our audio inputs from inputs 1 – 6.

2. Now, all we need to do is arm the tracks (enable input monitoring) and start recording.

Make sure your DAW’s playback engine is the same OMNIBUS device you are routing audio to.

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“OMNIBUS makes complex audio routing easy whether you’re an audio professional or enthusiast. Now with OMNIBUS 2.0, there is hardware input support and a new and much-improved user interface for greater flexibility. “

IGOR MAXYMENKO

AUDIOMOVERS COFOUNDER
In recent years, we’ve seen the rise of music producers live streaming on platforms such as Twitch and YouTube. Artists like Kenny Beats, Disclosure, and Ian Kirkpatrick regularly share educational and entertaining live streams that delve into their writing and music production processes.

Live streaming is an incredible way for artists, producers and engineers to create secondary revenue streams, and establish and nurture their online fan bases. It can also provide them with the opportunity to learn new skills, techniques and workflow hacks.

However, setting up your live stream can be a complicated process. Most opt for OBS (Open Broadcaster Software), a free, open-source software for video recording and live streaming.

Thanks to our newly updated OMNIBUS tool, it has never been easier to live stream audio from multiple applications using OBS. Below we break down how you can use OMNIBUS in conjunction with OBS when live-streaming sessions to an audience.

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Why use OMNIBUS with OBS?

OMNIBUS 2.0 is a software solution for seamless audio routing within your Mac. It allows you to route between applications and hardware inputs and outputs, split audio from one source to several destinations for easy A/B, combine audio input devices for DAW outputs and quickly sample audio from various sources.

It offers an intuitive interface and streamlines the audio routing workflow, making it accessible for all users, from beginners and absolute professionals.

OMNIBUS has an easy-to-use routing matrix, allowing you to simply click the connections between devices you want to make. It also allows you to save and recall complex routing setups with ‘snapshots’, which you can label for ease of finding in future and also has precise metering and support for hardware inputs and outputs meaning it can adapt to even the most demanding scenarios.

Let’s see how OMNIBUS makes capturing application audio easy with OBS.

OMNIBUS & OBS in action: How to live stream a music production session

For this example of using OMNIBUS and OBS, we are using the DAW Logic Pro. The same logic will also apply to your DAW of choice.

1. Set your DAW’s playback engine as one of OMNIBUS’ virtual drivers so that your DAW’s output will be travelling through the OMNIBUS application. For this example, we are using OMNIBUS B.

2. Before moving to OBS, you’ll first need to route your DAW’s audio to your designated monitor output so that you can hear your DAW. Simply drag channels 1 and 2 from OMNIBUS B to your chosen monitor output. In this case, a UAD Apollo interface.

3. In OBS, set up an audio input capture and assign it to one of the OMNIBUS drivers, here we’ve got it set to OMNIBUS A channels 1&2 as we’re only sending our stereo masters output to OBS.

4. Now let’s move to OMNIBUS and get started on our routing configuration. As we have our DAW’s playback set to OMNIBUS B, we’ll simply need to route OMNIBUS B’s channels 1 and 2 to OMNIBUS A’s channels 1 and 2. Once completed your DAW’s audio will be travelling directly into OBS

5. Now, let’s set up a microphone to use for our video commentary. As OMNIBUS 2.0 supports hardware inputs, we can utilise any channel from any of our hardware inputs and route them through OMNIBUS to another designated input for OBS. Doing this will allow you to adjust the levels between your microphone and your DAW audio.

If you’re just starting and don’t have a microphone yet you could always use your computer’s built-in microphone.

6. Let’s repeat the same steps as before in OBS and set up an audio capture device but this time, let’s use OMNIBUS C.

If you have a USB audio microphone such as a Snowball mic, you could select this right here. However, for this example I have a microphone plugged into my audio interface that I wish to use as my commentary microphone. All I need to do is route channel 1 from my audio interface into OMNIBUS C channel 1.

As this is a mono channel, however, you will notice on the input level for our mic in OBS that it is only capturing audio from the left channel. We’ve selected a mono signal and OBS is thinking it’s a stereo input. To amend this, simply navigate to advanced audio properties in your audio capture device for your microphone OBS and navigate to the mic input capture you created and change it from stereo to mono.

7. Now we’ve got our DAW’s audio and mic’s audio we’re now ready to start streaming or screen recording.

Before you start streaming, it’s good practice to test out your stream. Simply start recording and pass some audio from your daw and your microphone. Now play this video back and see whether the audio is being recorded.

Once you’re happy with your setup, you can go back into OMNIBUS and save this routing configuration for later use.

Get demo

“OMNIBUS makes complex audio routing easy whether you’re an audio professional or enthusiast. Now with OMNIBUS 2.0, there is hardware input support and a new and much-improved user interface for greater flexibility. “

IGOR MAXYMENKO

AUDIOMOVERS COFOUNDER
Ahead of launching MIDI streaming and MIDI Time Code generation within LISTENTO, we asked Abbey Road Studios’ Senior Recording Engineer Andrew Dudman for his take on the possibilities of this new technology for running large scale sessions in the iconic Studio One.

From working with MIDI synthesizers and sound modules, to managing remote MIDI control surfaces and synchronizing remote DAWs with transmitted or newly generated MTC timecodes –

The options are only limited by your imagination.

All LISTENTO Pro subscribers can take advantage right now, you just need to download the latest versions of the plugin and the app from Audiomovers.com.

You can get a free one-month trial of LISTENTO Pro with the code TRYMIDI.

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#NerdingOut is where we uncover the “tools of the pros” — the sacred plugins, gear and instruments that are essential to the process of award-winning producers, mixers and engineers.

Learn how acclaimed Producer and Recording Engineer Matt Genovese found and recapped an original 1960s Scully 280 tape machine.

This famously versatile piece of hardware has been used on records like ‘Led Zeppelin II’ and ‘III’ and Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Little Wing’.

Matt utilizes it in various ways, including printing on individual tracks to mixing with it.

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TRANSCRIPT

Clients are always impressed about, you know, just seeing a tape machine in the room is cool, but when you record a song onto it, it’s a pretty big difference.

Most of the records that I love were all done on tape machines. A few months ago, I found a Scully 280 machine, which is from the sixties.

It was the same machine that they had in, uh, Stax Records and Motown. Records like Led Zeppelin two and three were done on it, Jimmy Hendrix’s Little Wing was done on it.

So it’s a very famous machine. I found it. I recapped it and got it working a hundred percent.

Again, I print individual tracks to it. Sometimes if I want that sound on a whole recording.

I’ll just send something to a compressor, I can insert the tape machine as a hardware insert, and then I also mix to it. So I mix with it in input record.

So I’m monitoring it through the electronics as I mix, and then when I’m done, I flip it to playback and I record it to tape, and so it runs straight outta my console, straight into the tape machine and outta the tape machine back into my computer where I print the final mix.

When you ab it with and without the tape, specifically with the Scully 280, it’s a big difference.
#NerdingOut is where we uncover the tools of the pros — the sacred plugins, gear and instruments that are essential to the workflows of acclaimed producers, engineers and artists.

In this edition of #NerdingOut, we are honored to be joined by Andrew Dudman, Senior Engineer at Abbey Road Studios. Andrew is one of the foremost British film-scoring engineers, having worked on recording blockbuster scores from Star Wars to Lord of the Rings, to Guardians of the Galaxy, Baby Driver, Gravity, and many many more.

Andrew took us behind the scenes on how he got started using Audiomover’s LISTENTO on recording sessions at Abbey Road and how it’s become core to his work.

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TRANSCRIPT

It just makes our workflow so much more flexible.

During Covid, obviously we were forced to work remotely and collaborate remotely, but what we found is we’ve taken some of those workflows and applied them to our everyday working here.

So I can sit mixing with the producer behind me streaming to his laptop. He can put his headphones on and kind of check how it compares against the consumer kind of playback systems rather than the the pro systems.

I make sure that I’ve got LISTENTO on all my sessions just sitting on a stereo bus ready to use.

Obviously we’re benefit from having beautiful, large, full range monitors in all the studios here, but you want to be able to ab on for different scenario.

And actually this is so simple. We just load up a link on your, on your phone or on your laptop, and then you can Bluetooth that to headphones or to the TV or anything.

It gives you kind of complete control of how, how you listen.
#NerdingOut is where we uncover the “tools of the pros” — the sacred plugins, gear and instruments that are essential to the process of award-winning producers, mixers and engineers.

In this episode we chat to Alina Smith, co-founder of the writing/production duo, LYRE Music, who’s known for her work with the likes of Fall Out Boy, ITZY, Red Velvet.

LISTENTO has now become a vital part of Alina’s production workflow.

Predominantly using it to run sessions through, Alina has also found innovative ways to vocal produce artists through the software, as well as helping musicians track instruments while making notes and edits in real-time from the comfort of her home studio.

WATCH THE FULL VIDEO

TRANSCRIPT

“I’ve used LISTENTO in so many ways. The most common one is just to run sessions through it. I work with people on Zoom and they listen to my DAW, Ableton through LISTENTO.

I’ve also vocal produced people on zoom through LISTENTO. Their engineers, stream them singing to me and I get to make notes and edits and stuff. So that works really, really well.

I’ve even helped people record instruments, one of the people that plays guitar for me, he lives like 30 minutes away from here, but one day we were just like, ahh don’t come over. It’s fine. Let’s just do it over the internet and he was just streaming his session through LISTENTO.

I heard it hifi as if he was here and just giving him notes. So yeah, it works really great.”

Step 1: Getting set up

Step 2: Routing in the application

Step 1: Getting set up

Step 2: Routing in the application

Step 3: Recording in your DAW

Why use OMNIBUS with OBS?

OMNIBUS & OBS in action: How to live stream a music production session