How to make Omni HD play Mac sounds??

[1.S]

Dear Avid Fellows,

I want to make my Omni HD play sounds of a Mac Pro (Late 2013).
When running iTunes, Youtube, Quicktime, etc. I would like to hear the sounds through my speakers that are connected to the Omni, so far I have to use my headphones plugged into the mac.
No sound is going in or out of my Omni HD.
When running Pro Tools the Omni works just fine, but only with sounds inside a Pro Tools session.

I know this thing has already been discussed here, but I still couldn't figure out how to really make it work.

So far I've been trying this:

1.
- connecting the Omni and the Mac via an optical TOSlink cable (going from headphones out of Mac to optical in at the Omni)
- In Pro Tools set up/hardware I have set the mixer to optical as suggested by WolfieCAL of this forum.
Here is his screenshot: http://s374.photobucket.com/user/Wol...efc0e.png.html
Result: Mac keeps playing sounds through it's own speakers and there is no sound going in or out of the Omni.

2.
- connecting the Omni and the Mac via a stereo mini jack to two mono jacks cable (headphones out at Mac to ch1 and ch2 of the Omni)
Result: I had an input signal of the left channel of a stereo audiotrack played in Quicktime Player. I could listen to the audiotrack when I record enabled a stereo track in Pro Tools or via input monitoring. But only the left channel would play.
Tried different Players, different in- and outputs - to no avail.

A few people in this forum said the connection via an optical cable worked great for them. Even enabling them to listen to Mac system sounds without running PT.

Can anyone explain their set up, so I can make mine work as well??

Thanks and all the best,
1.S

-----------------------
Mac Pro (Late 2013), 3,7GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon, Yosemite, Pro Tools 11, Omni HD

[1.S]

Reading through other posts on this topic I stumble over people saying they have set their Mac Audio to optical/digital. Same goes for Omni and software e.g. Soundminer.
I wonder how they did this! I don't see any option to set my Mac to digital/optical neither in System Preferences/Sound nor in the Audio Midi Setup.
Ihave set Omni to Optical at "Setup/Digi 1-2" but that might not be it...
Could someone let me know how they have setup their MAc and Omni to allow Mac sounds being played over their Omni?

I guess I'm missing something obvious here, but I can't find it out myself.

Anyone?

[TheMightyQuinn]

I'm running OSX 10.5.5, PT12.5 HD / HDX using an OMNI. I have PT set to use the HDX engine and can play both audio from PT and from my Mac (iTunes, Youtube, etc) using the ONMI and my studio speakers.

I'm not in front of my system at the moment, but from memory...

I'm using a TOSLINK from the Mac to my OMNI.

Set the Mac to output digital audio in the Mac OS System Preferences under Sounds.

In PT under Hardware Setup, you set the input from the Main (or maybe it's the Analog In?) tab to be Optical. There's a Tascam Optical setting there too. I can't remember if that is checked on or off, but that needs to be set also.

There may also be some required setup in the ONMI Mixer settings, but I only vaguely remember that setup.

Sorry for the vagueness, but maybe enough to get you on track? If still stuck, let me know and I'll check to be sure when i get back to my system or maybe someone else here can help fill out the details in a more clear manner?

[1.S]

Thank you MightyQuinn!
Hm, Would be really great to know how you set the Mac Output to Digital.
As mentioned before I can not choose Digital anywhere under System Preferences/Sound.
I suspect the option for Digital Output might just pop up when a Toslink cable is plugged into the headphone jack. Can anyone confirm? That would mean my Toslink cable is not working. I will get another Toslink and check on that.

My other suspicion is that I have something set up wrong in the Omni Setup.
Would also be great to know a functioning setting of someone.

I think my PT Hardware settings are correct.

Thanks again and yes, would be good to hear from others too.

[Darryl Ramm]

Built-in output on your Mac is a combination analog and S/PDIF over TOSLINK output. Just plug it in. I'm not sure what you are expecting to configure/enable or why. Built-in output just goes there.

When you plug in a 3.5mm TOSLINK adapter or cable into the headphone out it should silence the Mac speakers. At least it does on MacBooks etc. I'd assume the same on your Mac Pro. But you need to troubleshoot what is going on.

A common cause of the symptoms you are having would not be plugging the 3.5mm TOSLINK plug in all the way... is it going in OK? seating properly? dust cap removed from the end of the plug? Look in the socket with a bright flashlight, do you see a small dust cap stuck in there that used to be on the end of the 3.5mm plug (yes, seriously this happens).

If you are using built-in output and not getting a signal at the other end of your TOSLINK cable then start suspecting the Omni setup or your cable first. Find some other way to troubleshoot stuff, like test say playing a CD player or MP3 player over TOSLINK to the Omni or test say a TOSLINK DAC or digital headphone amp playing from the Macintosh output.

There is a whole vast Internet out there you can search with Google for basic help with your computer.

[TheMightyQuinn]

Originally Posted by 1.S

Thank you MightyQuinn!
Hm, Would be really great to know how you set the Mac Output to Digital.
As mentioned before I can not choose Digital anywhere under System Preferences/Sound.
I suspect the option for Digital Output might just pop up when a Toslink cable is plugged into the headphone jack. Can anyone confirm? That would mean my Toslink cable is not working. I will get another Toslink and check on that.

My other suspicion is that I have something set up wrong in the Omni Setup.
Would also be great to know a functioning setting of someone.

I think my PT Hardware settings are correct.

Thanks again and yes, would be good to hear from others too.

This picture isn't from my PT machine specifcially, but you should find a Digital Output selection under System Preferences --> Sound --> Output --> Digital Out (Type: Optical digital-out port) (See attachment)

If your system doesn't offer you this option, you've either got Mac hardware issues (Does your Mac actually have an Optical Out?) or some other corrupted or damaged system configuration.

You don't need anything connected to the optical port to get this far. The digital option will be available in the Sound preferences if the port is available.

[TVPostSound]

With a MAC, you need one of these if you use the headphone out, on later models of MBP, Mini.
http://www.showmecables.com/product/...FQFsfgodmtkKKQ

[nst7]

You could also get this all in one cable from Guitar Center. It may be in stock at your local one:

http://www.guitarcenter.com/Hosa/35m...Optic-Cable.gc

[gtomassetti]

Hi:

I'd like to jump into this thread, a few months after the fact.

For years, I've used a Metric Halo ULN-2 as my default interface, and it's been really good. It and my OMNI are connected via TRS to a PreSonus Central Station, and I just switch inputs from TRS-1 to TRS-2 when I'm working in PT.

Lately, though, my ULN-2 has been putting out an unbearable amount of system noise, even when there's no signal running through it and it's just idling. I've done every bit of troubleshooting I can think of, and I've come to the conclusion that the ULN-2 has developed some sort of hardware issue, and I've contacted MH to ask them what they can do about it.

Meantime, I decided to try to set my OMNI as the default interface. I connected the digital output of my Mac (mid-2010) to the OMNI (usually the TOSLINK output of the ULN-2 goes into the OMNI), and set up my hardware prefs accordingly.

I created a blank session, put in one stereo track, set the input to 1/2, turned on Track Input Monitor, and got excellent sound from iTunes, YouTube, etc.

My question is, is there a way to get this to happen WITHOUT having PT open??? I seem to recall that Avid still won't play nice with Core Audio, but I've never really dealt with that before. I'd appreciate any thoughts on the matter.

Thanks,

Gary

[TheMightyQuinn]

Originally Posted by gtomassetti

Hi:

I'd like to jump into this thread, a few months after the fact.

For years, I've used a Metric Halo ULN-2 as my default interface, and it's been really good. It and my OMNI are connected via TRS to a PreSonus Central Station, and I just switch inputs from TRS-1 to TRS-2 when I'm working in PT.

Lately, though, my ULN-2 has been putting out an unbearable amount of system noise, even when there's no signal running through it and it's just idling. I've done every bit of troubleshooting I can think of, and I've come to the conclusion that the ULN-2 has developed some sort of hardware issue, and I've contacted MH to ask them what they can do about it.

Meantime, I decided to try to set my OMNI as the default interface. I connected the digital output of my Mac (mid-2010) to the OMNI (usually the TOSLINK output of the ULN-2 goes into the OMNI), and set up my hardware prefs accordingly.

I created a blank session, put in one stereo track, set the input to 1/2, turned on Track Input Monitor, and got excellent sound from iTunes, YouTube, etc.

My question is, is there a way to get this to happen WITHOUT having PT open??? I seem to recall that Avid still won't play nice with Core Audio, but I've never really dealt with that before. I'd appreciate any thoughts on the matter.

Thanks,

Gary

I don't know about bringing in iTunes audio directly into Pro Tools as you have described as I have never had a reason to do that, but I believe you need to set up the Mixer settings under Hardware in Pro Tools Preferences.

When this is set correctly, you can run Mac system audio (iTunes, Web videos, etc.) through the ONMI without having Pro Tools running. You also don't need AVID's Core Audio plugin for this as I don't have that loaded in my system.

The picture below is from the Mixer section as an example, but not of my setup. You'll want to to use the AES/EBU 1-2 section, clicking on either or both the MON and HP (Headphones) buttons.

Hope this helps some...