Connecting Music Mixer into Macbook Pro

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Connecting Music Mixer into Macbook Pro

I have an Alto ZMX122fx mixer. We are two guitar players/singers and we have both our guitars and both our mics plugged into the mixer. We want to do a live stream but with the sound coming directly from the mixer and not from the room. We want to connect the mixer to the macbook pro. We are using OBS to run the stream and the audio. What we saw on Youtube is two 1/4 inch jacks going from the main out of the mixer, into a 3.5mm cable and then we plugged that into aa sound card adapter (mic input) which plugged directly into the usb-c input on the macbook. The sound coming in was so distorted and choppy. What did we do wrong? Do we need some kind of digital processor between the mixer and the laptop?

Here are the cables we are using from mixer to Macbook:

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B08GYNTCRF/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B08C2531QT/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Help!

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.13

Posted on Jan 23, 2021 7:37 PM

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Answer 1

Brian_P7

Community Specialist

Jan 25, 2021 8:15 PM in response to Leeblast

Hello Leeblast and welcome to Apple Support Communities. It appears you are having some difficulty getting audio into your Mac for streaming a performance.

There are quite a few variables here and the challenge is going to be in isolating the issue. Here are some things to consider:

1) What you are describing could just be overloading the input. Try turning down the output on the mixer. You may have to turn it down by quite a bit. The outputs on a mixer like the one you are using are line level and it looks like that audio-to-USB adapter is expecting to get a mic level input which is much lower than a line level signal.

2) If there is an input control on the app you are using for streaming, try turning it down as well.

3) This may also be a case of trying to use an audio-USB adapter that appears to be made more for gaming than for recording or streaming multi-track audio If you have access to a higher-end USB interface or a mixer with a USB output, try using that.

Cheers.

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Connecting Music Mixer into Macbook Pro

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