VINKALMANN’s Guide to Using the Echo Indigo

DJ With Ableton Live

(Ver 1 03/29/07)

Introduction

Luckily for us there’s a wide variety of

sound card options to choose from to use
with audio programs like Ableton Live. They
all have their strengths be it cost or
number of outputs. The Echo Indigo DJ is an
excellent value, has great sound quality,
and comes in a compact form and doesn’t
require an external power supply. This guide
focuses on setting up the Echo Indigo DJ for
use with Ableton Live. We’ll cover
installing the drivers, setting up the Echo
Console, and setting the card up in Ableton
to cue as well as outputting audio to
multiple channel inputs in a traditional DJ
mixer. This guide is geared towards PC users,
but the same concepts apply for Mac users.
While this guide focuses on the Echo Indigo
DJ, the Ableton section on cueing and
routing applies to all sound cards.

Driver and Hardware Installation

Your new card comes with an installation CD,

but I would recommend going to the Echo
Audio site to get the most current drivers.
This is especially important for Vista users
as they’re making updates to the drivers on
a very frequent schedule. The drivers can be
downloaded on the Echo Audio Support Page.

Before proceeding, make sure that your card

is not plugged in. Launch the executable
file that you downloaded. Hit install and
let the installer do its thing.

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Once the drivers have been installed, go
ahead and plug the card into the PCMIA slot
of your laptop. Hopefully you didn’t confuse
an Express Card slot with a PCMIA when
purchasing the card. After the card is
inserted, you get the satisfaction of seeing
the blue LED light up (don’t worry if it
doesn’t light right away, it takes a few
seconds). On Vista you don’t need to do
anything else. On Windows XP you’ll need to
do an additional step. When you plug the
card in, XP will recognize the card and will
ask you to search for drivers. Choose to
have the drivers found automatically. If you
get a warning that the drivers are unsigned,
or unverified, don’t worry, install them.

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Echo Console Setup

While the Echo Indigo DJ only has two sets of

stereo outputs (4 channels), you can actually
use 8 channels in audio programs and then mix
those channels down to 4 channels. For Ableton
use, this isn’t necessary. Let’s confirm that
the console is setup correctly. Open the Echo
Console (Programs=>Echo Digital
Console=>Console 3=>Show all console windows).

2
4

To start out we want to deal with channels 1

and 2. Start by making sure that the “A 1-2”
button is clicked in.1 We only want channels 1
and 2 output from Ableton to be output through
the card. Make sure that the mute controls for
channels 1 and 2 are not clicked.2 Confirm that
the mutes for channels 3 through 8 are clicked.
Now hit the “A 3-4” button so we can do the
settings for channel 3 and 4. 3 Since we’re
only interested in channel 3 and 4, make sure
all other channels are muted.4 For all channels
make sure that the output level slider is all
the way up.5 That’s it! Don’t be surprised if
it was already set up when you launched the
console. Seems like most people get started

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out without having to do this, but some have
different settings which aren’t compatible with
cueing.

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Ableton Live Soundcard Setup

Start by launching Live and select “Options”

then “Preferences”. Then click on the “Audio
Tab”.

Set the “Driver Type” drop-down to “ASIO”

and the “Audio Device” device to “ASIO Echo
PCI”. Click the “Input Config” button to
bring up the input setup screen.

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The Indigo DJ doesn’t have any inputs so
there’s no need to have any inputs active.
This is a good way to conserve system
resources. If there are inputs active,
Ableton allocates resources even though the
inputs aren’t technically being used.

Hit “OK” and then hit the “Output Config”

button. Here we want to have “1/2 (stereo)
and ¾(stereo) active. “1/2” is likely active
already so hit the “3/4” button. Hit ok get
back to the preferences page. Hit the
“Hardware Setup” button.

Set the buffer size to 512 samples. This

setting should cover most systems. When you
ultimately have finished setting the
soundcard up and you’re playing tracks, pay
attention to whether you are getting clicks,
pops, or drop-outs in the sound. If you are,
come back to the “Hardware Setup” screen and
increase the buffer size. If you continue to
hear the artifacts in the sound, raise the
sample buffer size higher. In the same way,
if the sample buffer is set at 512 samples
and you aren’t hearing anything, try
lowering it. Lower it until you do hear
problems and then raise it one step higher.
Note that taxing the system with a lot of
effects and tracks will require a higher
sample buffer size than if the system was
only running two tracks. Also note that a

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slower computer will likely need a higher
buffer size than a faster machine.

Close all the preferences windows to get

back to the main Ableton screen. Take a look
in the lower right of the screen. There are
two drop-downs for “cue” out and “master
out”. Set the cue out to “1/2” and the
master out to “3/4”.

2
1

Hit the button that says “cue” so it turns

blue.1 It may say “solo”. If it does click it
so it turns to “cue”. If you’ve gotten to
this point and you can’t even find anything
in the picture about. Click the “I-O”
(input-output) button and you’ll be in
business.2 It probably doesn’t need an
explanation, but you also have your cue
level control here.3 You can change the
volume of cue output by using your mouse, or
even better map a midi controller knob to
the cue volume control.

Alright, you’re almost done. All you need to

know now is how to cue. The second track in
the picture below is outputting to the cue,
but not the master. That’s because the cue

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button1 is clicked on, and the track speaker
switch2 is turned off.

The first audio track, on the other hand, is

outputting to the master channel, but not
the cue. The speaker switch is turned on,
but the cue switch is turned off. Hit the
other cue button and you’ll notice one of
Ableton’s quirks in the cueing department.
You hit the cue button on the first track
and the cue on the second track turns off.
Not all that useful since on many occasions
you may want to cue more than one track.
Select Options=>Preferences again and go to
the “Record/Warp/Launch” tab. Turn the
1
“Solo” switch off. Problem solved, you can
cue all you want now.

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 1

Using Ableton With a Traditonal Mixer

The last section deals with setting up the

Indigo DJ to cue from the card. Since the
card has dual outputs, you have the option
to output to multiple channels on a typical
DJ mixer. This allows you to mix using
Ableton in the traditional manner, using the
mixer to control track levels and cue using
the mixer instead of the card. To do this we
need to change the audio routing. Change the
“Audio To” drop-down1 to “Ext Out” and the
drop-down below to “1/2”2 on audio track 1,
and “3/4” on audio track 2.

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 1

If you happen to have an audio card with

more than two audio outputs, you can do the
same thing as above for as many audio tracks
as you have outputs. Just add a track and
set the “Audio To” channel output to “5/6”
and so on.

1/2
3/4
V

To connect the Echo Indigo DJ to your mixer,

connect the “1/2” output to channel one
channel on your mixer and output “3/4” to
another channel on the mixer in the same way
you would if you were hooking up CD decks.
Make sure that the cue volume is dialed all
the way up.V That’s it. As a quick side note,
the signal output that comes out of the
Indigo DJ is often times a bit lower than
that of a CD deck or turntable. You’ll
likely need to turn up the trim knob on the
mixer channels that the Indigo is hooked up
to.

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Conclusion

Well, that’s about it. If anything is

confusing, you have questions, or have ideas
for things that should be added to the guide,
please let me know at [email protected].

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