When you have created your mixes (see Part I of this tutorial), you then need to route them to the outputs of your device. This is done predominantly using the routing panel, shown below.



This panel can be found in the bottom left-hand corner of Saffire MixControl.

Please Note: If you are using a Saffire PRO 24 DSP or a Liquid Saffire 56 and can only see the first 2 outputs, click on the button to the left of the one marked Routing Preset…, and select Router.

This panel shows all of the available outputs on your interface (the screenshot above shows Saffire MixControl with a Liquid Saffire 56 connected), and each output has a button next to it that can be used to assign a specific audio stream to that output.

To assign an output, click on the button next to that output. As shown below, you will be able to choose between 3 different types of audio streams: Inputs, DAW, and Mixes.



Inputs are the audio inputs on your interface, both analogue and digital. This will route audio straight from the selected audio input, to the selected audio output, without incurring the latency of a round trip down the FireWire bus and back.

DAW contains all of the audio streams coming back from your computer, whether from your recording software, or from a media player, or System Sounds.

Mixes are the audio steams created by a combination of Inputs and DAWs. More information about these can be found in Part I of this tutorial.


Routing Presets

Clicking on the Routing Preset… button to the left of your monitor outputs in the routing pane gives access to the following five preset routing configurations that can be used as an alternative to configuring the routing manually:

Clear – Turns all outputs off.
DAW Tracking – Routes DAW 1 and DAW 2 (outputs 1 and 2 from your computer) to each pair of analogue outputs.
Zero Latency Tracking – Routes Mix 1 and Mix 2 (or Mix 1 (L) and Mix 1 (R)) to each pair of analogue outputs.
Mixing – Routes all DAW outputs from your computer to the corresponding analogue output.
Loopback – Routes DAW 1 and DAW 2 to the loopback (virtual) outputs for re-recording back into your computer.


See also:
Saffire MixControl Tutorial Part I: Creating Mixes
Saffire MixControl Tutorial Part III: Getting Sufficient Level from the Audio Outputs