How to best to monitor external instruments through control room

Cubase
1

Hi,
I have set up two external instruments.

They are plugged into my Focusrite 18i20 - as shown here - one on Outputs 5 and 6, the other on outputs 7 and 8.

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My control room is set up for two different monitor setups and headphones. This is all rock solid and has been working fine for years. The settings in Focusrite Control 2 all work to route the Control room outputs correctly.

So - what’s my problem?

I can see the audio signals coming through on my my inputs in mixer - see below:

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But the only way I can listen to them, and it still work through control room, is to add audio tracks with those input channels as the track inputs and then hit the monitor button:

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This does work fine and it routes correctly in Control room - But it feels like there must be a simpler way of doing this - any thoughts?

Thanks
(all my specs are in my bio)

2

Hi,

Yes, there is an easier way.

Add an External Instrument. Set the MIDI and Audio Return Ports. Then you can use a single Instrument Track instead of MIDI+Audio Tracks.

3

Hi Martin,
Thankyou - that worked.

Final question - the external instruments are out of sync with any virtual instruments I play - I can see the external Instruments have a delay setting like for external effects - how do I calculate what this should be?

Many Thanks