Using Multiple Audio Interfaces – Create An Aggregate Device On macOS

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If you’re using macOS to record music, why should you be limited by the amount of inputs on your audio interface? In this video I show you how to create an aggregate device to combine multiple audio interfaces into one device that your DAW will recognise.

Link a few two channel interfaces together to create a eight channels, or a couple of 16 channel interfaces together to create 32 inputs! The sky is the limit! Actually, there may be a limit, I haven’t checked that. Please let me know if there is in the comments!

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28 Comments

  1. And can you record the different channels through different tracks or is it split between Right and Left on just one track?

  2. I spend more time learning new tech things than I do playing! I have an old FireWire ensemble that I guess can be used as a “standalone device” which I have no clue what that even means. It looks cool though!

  3. Any idea how Pro Tools decides which interface is the one you want to use to output to your studio monitors? I/O Set Up I'm guessing?

  4. Question Sam, When recording into Logic, you can only hear the” key’s” fantom O’s sound if you set the fantom as input and Scarlet as output. But to hear vocals, – microphone output, you have to have the (interface) – Scarlet on both, the input and the output: So playing a song and doing vocals at the same time same time is impossible. There must be a solution without doing just one at a time? Thanks, Randy

  5. You can also do this with AVB built into macOS aggregated to an analog I/O device, say an octacapture.
    So for system calibrations I will inject noise via AVB to processors, and am able to probe processor outputs to create full 2-channel transfer function measurements.
    Doing this with Smaart does reveal the drift correction in the phase. From what I've seen, the highest octaves will allowed to drift up to +180° (with around 1k and down being linear), and once they get near 180 they snap down to linear phase, then repeats this every few seconds.
    only a minor downside for system calibration, but I could see this potentially being a little washy on cymbals that have semi-correlated mics, like overheads

  6. So I have two audio devices. one is at 48K and the other is at 44.1. It allowed me to create the aggregate device but am I going to have in issue with the two different sample rates?

  7. That’s the spirit! Heard about this thing yesterday and got so excited. Now I can have my op-1 field, op-z and scarlet interface all connected and flowing signals in and out via just usb cables. Viva technology!

  8. Why tick audio correction for both devices? From what I've read and seen in other videos as long as you tick the main interface first, the extra interfaces are automatically ticked for correction so they sync with the main?

  9. Regarding drift correction: I’ve seen people say that you should only enable it for the non-master unit, that you should enable it for both, and that you don’t have to at all if your devices are connected via bnc. So which is it?

  10. Is there any chance you could do a vid to show how to get audio from logic and mic both through usb please ,I have a sslmk2 plus interface

  11. So if you're using the USB 2.0 interfaces, such as the Behringer for INPUT only, and monitoring/additional inputs on a lower latency USB-C, such as Presonus Quantum, you would be fine with tracking, righte? Since the 2.0 is only going one way, and you're using a faster interface for round trip?

  12. Crackles and distortion occurs after a while: I tried doing this live, iPhone for backing plus UA Apollo into Live Professor. Unfortunately iPhone pulls the bitrate from 48k down to 44.1 AND crackles and digital distortion from iPhone start to occur after a while. Apparently this is a fairly new aggregate bug according to forums.

  13. This video is 3 years old. But I was TODAYS year old before I figured out how to combine various USB interfaces without having to go into Audio preferences every time and switch stuff around. YOU GOT A SUBSCRIBE!

  14. Thanks for a wicked video. Do you have any advice for aggregating two Tascam Model 12s?