How to Set Up a Native Instruments Audio Interface with Ableton Live

This article shows how to set up a Native Instruments audio interface with Ableton Live. We are using the Komplete Audio 6 as an example.

Setting up the Device and Driver

  1. Open the Audio tab in Live's Preferences.
  2. On Mac: Select Komplete Audio 6 (6 In, 6 Out) as your Audio Input Device and Audio Output Device and set Driver Type to CoreAudio.
    MacAudioDeviceCoreAudio.png
    On Windows: Select Komplete Audio 6 as Audio Device and set Driver Type to ASIO:
    WinAudioDeviceAsio.png
  3. Next to Channel Configuration, click the Input Config button. Activate all Inputs you want to use and confirm your selection:
    InputConfig.png
  4. Click the Output Config button. Activate all Outputs you want to use and confirm your selection:
    OutputConfig.png

    Note: If you know exactly which physical input/output channels you are going to use, you may leave the unused channels deselected.

  5. Close the Preferences.

Setting Up a Cue Out on Output Channels 3 + 4

  1. Go to Live's Session View.
  2. Open the Input-Output settings by clicking the corresponding I-O button on the right side of Live's Session View.
    IO.png
  3. On the Master track, select an output pair for your Master Out and another output pair for your Cue Out (prelisten). In this example we are selecting channel A (1/2) as our master output and channel B (3/4) as our monitor output.
    MasterCueOuts_new.png

Ableton Live's master output will now play through the main output channel A of the Komplete Audio 6, which you can connect to your speaker system.

You can use any of Ableton Live's audio routing options to route audio from and to the the inputs and outputs of your Native Instruments audio interface, including the I/Os of individual Audio and MIDI Tracks as well as the External Audio Effect and External Instrument plug-ins. Please refer to the Ableton Live documentation for more information.