Interface Setup

Setting up an interface can be a bit daunting at first. Hopefully this provides generic information that may clear up confusion common to most interfaces.

Control Panel

Your interface should come with software to control it, often labeled "mixer" or "control panel". This often lets you do various things with inputs and outputs similar to real-world mixing board. It is also where you set the sample rate, clock source, input buffer, and SPDIF source.

Inputs/Mixer

The mixer tab of the control panel typically resembles a mixing board. This includes the physical inputs on your interface as well as software return inputs from your DAW which your DAW will see as outputs. Your DAW should automatically see all of your interface's physical inputs without having to change anything here. Different interfaces will provide your DAW software with different numbers of virtual outputs. The mixer page determines how the physical and software inputs are routed to the physical outputs on the interface. Let's look at a few examples.

1. Guitar > Mic'ed Amp/Cab > Microphone Physical Input > DAW > Software Return Inputs 1/2 > Mixer Settings > Physical Outputs 1/2 > Monitors/Headphones
2. Guitar > Mic'ed Amp/Cab > Physical Inputs > Mixer Settings > Physical Outputs 1/2 > Monitors/Headphones
3. Guitar > Instrument Physical Input > DAW > Software Return Inputs 3/4 > Mixer Settings > Physical Outputs 3/4 > Mic'ed Amp/Cab > Microphone Physical Input > DAW > Software Return Inputs 1/2 > Mixer Settings > Physical Outputs 1/2 > Monitors/Headphones

Example 1 is a typical guitar recording setup. You are not routing the physical input directly to any output, but picking it up in the DAW where it is recorded to a track and output to the master bus, which sends it to outputs 1/2. The Mixer sees that as software return inputs 1/2 and routes that to physical outputs 1/2, which are connected to your studio monitors.

Example 2 is how you would monitor your rig through your monitors without using DAW software.

Example 3 routes the guitar directly into the interface, so that it can be recorded as a DI track in the DAW. This would allow you to reamp the track later. It is then routed back to the interface where it is sent out of physical outputs 3/4. This connects to the amp/cab, which is mic'ed and routed into the interface, which is recorded as a separate DAW track and returned to the interface and output to the studio monitors. While this method will work to record both direct guitar and the mic'ed amp/cab simultaneously, the signal is getting routed around quite a bit before finally getting to the monitors (and even the amp/cab). Thus, it may have a bit of latency that makes it difficult or awkward to play in time during tracking. A better method to record both dry and wet guitars would be to use a DI box to split the signal, sending the signal from the DI box and mic'ed cab to different inputs on the interface.

Typically, you want your physical inputs not to be routed to any physical outputs. You will route them into your DAW, where you will have complete control over direct monitoring them and recording them. If you are not using your DAW at the moment, however, you may want to route them to your monitor outputs. What this means is the interface software is telling the interface to patch whatever comes into physical input 1 to outputs 1 and 2. The signal never has to go into the computer where it may experience latency before being sent back to the interface and out the physical output.

The software return inputs are what your DAW sees as outputs, so set them up accordingly. Generally, you only want to monitor the master output bus, which should be routed to outputs 1/2 in the DAW. In your interface mixer, you thus want to route software return input 1/2 to the physical outputs connected to your monitors, which are also usually 1/2. You may use Line Outs to run to other gear, or reamp via SPDIF. The best way to avoid confusion is to route each software return input to the same-name physical output. In some cases they are labeled differently, and you can order them by priority. For example, if you often use the physical Line Out outputs to run to an effects processor, you can assign them to the next open software return input, such as 3/4.

The input mixer may have additional level and pan controls. Sometimes these are linked to hardware controls on the device itself.