- In this video, we're going to show you
four different ways to connect
your Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 audio interface
to studio monitors or powered speakers.
This will work for any self-powered speaker,
so basically if it plugs into the wall for power,
all the methods that we're going to show you in this video
will work for you.
So whether you're dealing with a small desktop speaker
like this,
or if you're dealing with a 12-inch powered speaker
for a PA system,
the methods that we're going to show you in this video
will work for you.
Now, if you are looking for pricing or specs
for any of the methods that we cover today,
we have links down in the description below
to show you all the cables and adapters that we talk about
when it comes to setting up powered speakers
or studio monitors with your Focusrite Scarlett 2i2.
So do check out the links down in the description below
if you want current, up-to-date pricing
from a variety of online retailers
for everything that we discuss here today.
Now, in this video,
we are using the Yamaha HS5 powered studio monitors.
This is what I use as my daily driver
at my video editing desk.
I absolutely love these speakers.
We're going to do some more videos on them specifically,
but just know that these are the ones that I actually use
when I'm working with music production, or video editing,
or anything like that.
Next to it I have the M-Audio AV40.
These are older speakers.
This was the first set of speakers I got
when I was getting started.
It will be evident as to why I'm using these speakers
later on in the video,
as we discuss some of the methods that you may need
to connect your Focusrite Scarlett 2i2
to your powered speakers.
Now, before we connect these studio monitors or speakers
to your audio interface,
there's one piece of information or theory
that we do need to cover.
That's the difference between a balanced cable
and an unbalanced cable.
You can see here in my palm right now,
I have two quarter-inch cables that look nearly identical.
One has a single ring and one has two rings on it.
The single ring, this quarter inch jack here is unbalanced.
That means that there's just one cable running
and if it picks up audio interference,
or any magnetic interference, or electrical interference,
that can show up and reduce the quality of your sound.
You might notice humming, buzzing, fluttering, static.
Some unbalanced cables can pick up radio signals.
So if you notice any of those symptoms,
it is probably because
you're using an unbalanced audio cable,
and it's picking up interference
over the length of that cable and it's causing problems.
A balanced cable, on the other hand,
basically has two legs.
It has the tip, the ring,
and then the sleeve is the ground.
And basically, one of the legs is phased inverted,
and it re-gets synced up on the other end,
where it's going on the end of your speaker
and it cancels out any noise that it picks up
along the cable, or at least most of it.
Now, 90% of the problems that you would have
with any of the solutions that we're presenting here
will be fixed by using a balanced cable.
So if you're using one of the quarter inch solutions
that we present in this video,
be sure to use a balanced cable if you have the budget.
They're usually a couple extra bucks
because the cable is more expensive
and there's a little bit more labor
in the soldering on these cables, but it is worth the money.
If you decide that you don't want to spend the money
and you want to get an unbalanced cable,
you will probably be fine
for lengths less than 15 feet of cable.
But if you do have issues,
this is the first place that I would start
to resolve that issue.
So in this video,
we're going to show you two options that are balanced,
two options that are unbalanced.
We're going to start at the best solutions that I recommend,
and we're going to work our way to the ones that will work,
but are theoretically not as good
for connecting your speakers to your Focusrite Scarlett 2i2.
Okay, so the first method that we're going to show you
in this video is using a balanced quarter inch cable.
If you look at the cable I have here,
you'll see that both ends of this cable
are a balanced quarter inch.
You can see that there's two black rings on there, there
so there's three distinct sections.
There's the tip, the ring, and the sleeve,
so it can send the normal audio from the audio interface,
the phase inverted version of the audio,
and the ground from the audio interface.
Those three sections get sent to the speaker as well,
where the one phase gets re-inverted and synced up
on the end of the speaker,
canceling out any noise along the run.
So with the speakers here,
on the back of the HS5 I have two options.
I can plug in the XLR cable or a quarter inch cable.
This is extremely common.
This is probably the most common way to connect
your Focusrite Scarlett 2i2
to a set of powered studio monitors.
So I'm going to use this black cable here
to connect the left output of the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2.
I'm going to plug that into the back
of the first speaker here.
And then I'm going to use a red version of the same cable.
Again, if you are looking for recommendations
of the cable here,
I have links down in the description below.
I'm going to plug the red one into the right output
of your audio interface, the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2.
And then I'm going to connect that
to the back of the Yamaha HS5.
Now that all the connections are made, we can turn it on.
It is recommended to always turn the speakers off
when you're connecting cables.
It can prevent those pops and stuff
when you plug jacks into a speaker that's powered on.
And now, we already do have music coming from the computer
to the audio interface.
So then it's just as simple as turning it up.
(music playing from speakers)
So that solution works.
With that solution,
that is the easiest, most straightforward solution.
It's a balanced solution
so you shouldn't get any noise or interference.
Again, if you are looking for recommendations
on these cables,
we have links down in the description below.
Now, for method two,
we're going to connect the quarter inch balanced outputs
from the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2
to the XLR input on the back of the speaker.
If your studio monitor only has XLR inputs,
this will work for you.
To do this, we're going to use a balanced quarter inch cable
to connect to the back of the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2.
And this cable will go to a male XLR
that will connect to the back of a studio monitor here.
Now, this is a balanced solution.
This uses the same cable type
as the previous TRS quarter-inch balanced solution
that we just showed you.
And it just has an XLR connector on the other end.
So this is still balanced.
You don't need a DI box or anything like that.
You can run this the same infinite length.
And sometimes XLR is a bit more convenient to work with.
So to do this,
we're going to connect the back
of this Focusrite Scarlett 2i2.
And we're going to connect the other end to the XLR input
on the powered speaker.
Now, if you need more length, you can buy a longer cable,
or if you need more length,
there's no harm in connecting another XLR cable
to the other end of this.
So for the right speaker here,
we're gonna connect the right output
of the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2.
And then just to show you, it doesn't make any difference,
we're going to connect an XLR cable to this, to extend it
so if you do need more length at your desk
or wherever you're working, you can do this as well.
And then we're going to connect that
to the back of the other speaker.
Now, this time, I forgot to turn the speakers off
when I was disconnecting and reconnecting them
so they are already connected and powered on.
Now, we can turn up the music on the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2.
(music playing from speakers)
And you can see there
that we have signal from both speakers.
This would be another balanced solution
that would work really well and would help reject noise
and give you a high-quality balanced solution
for connecting your Focusrite Scarlett 2i2
to your studio monitors.
All right, now for method three,
we have a different set of speakers here.
We have the M-audio AV40s.
These are quite old,
but they do give us some different options for connectivity
so we're going to show you these.
They also work a little bit differently
in terms of all the jacks are on one speaker here.
You can see that we have quarter-inch inputs and RCA inputs.
And then there's a piece of speaker wire
that connects two speakers.
This is fairly common as well for more low-end
or budget studio monitors, but it is completely viable
and it can work really well for you.
So for this method,
we're going to use unbalanced quarter inch cables,
also known as instrument cables.
So you can see here with these cables,
that they just have one black ring on the tip.
That means that it's unbalanced.
So we're going to connect this from the audio interface
into the powered speaker.
So we go from the left side there with this yellow cable.
And we're going to go to the left, quarter inch input there.
And then we're going to go from the right output
of the Scarlett 2i2
to the right input of these powered speakers.
Now, this will work for the majority of people
connecting to their studio monitors,
but if you do notice buzzing, or clicking, or hissing,
or fluttering, or radio signals, or anything like that,
you will need to upgrade these cables
to be balanced quarter inch cables.
Next, I'm going to turn these studio monitors on.
And then on my Focusrite Scarlett 2i2,
I can increase the volume.
(music playing from speakers)
And it sounds to me
like we're getting a high-quality signal.
Right now I don't hear any clicking, buzzing,
humming or anything like that
so this solution is working in this environment.
But maybe if I'm at my desk where there's a power strip
and a computer monitor and a lot more electrical equipment
really close to it,
that's when I would start to notice that how humming,
clicking, fluttering,
and then I would probably want to upgrade these
to be balanced quarter inch cables.
But these can work for a lot of people as well.
And you might not actually notice a difference
between both types of cables.
All right, for method, number four,
we're going to connect the quarter inch outputs
to the back of the studio monitors here
using the RCA inputs on the back of the speaker.
This would work well if your speakers only have RCA inputs.
Generally speaking,
and the reason that we're covering this last
is because I consider RCA to be antiquated.
I don't consider it to be as good.
I'd always prefer to use quarter inch, or XLR,
or something like that before I use RCA.
But for a lot of people, this may be your only option
so we're going to show you how to do it.
Here, we have a cable that converts two RCA jacks
to two unbalanced quarter inch cables.
So RCA is unbalanced, so keep that in mind as well.
So next, we're going to connect that
to the back of the audio interface.
We're going to do a red on the right side,
black on the left.
Now, a cable like this,
if your speakers have an input per speaker,
you can feel free to separate that a little bit,
as much as you need.
Maybe you need a 10-foot cable,
or maybe you order individual cables.
These ones happen to be attached,
but just know that you can always kind of pull these apart
if you need to.
So we're going to do red on the right side,
black on the left.
And now, everything should be good to go,
so we're going to turn it up.
(music playing from speakers)
And we can hear that that solution
works well for us as well.
So there you have four different options
to connect your Focusrite Scarlett 2i2
to your studio monitors.
I would always do them in order that I presented them here.
Balanced quarter inch cables are the easiest
and the most straightforward.
You can convert it to XLR with no quality loss,
but generally you'd need to order a special cable
in order to do that.
Next, we have unbalanced quarter inch.
There is a chance that you would have degraded quality
with this solution.
And then we have a quarter inch to RCA cable,
which again, you're converting and it's unbalanced.
This is really a last ditch effort
if your only solution is to plug into an RCA input
on the back of a powered speaker.
If you have any questions about any of the methods
that we showed you in this video,
please leave a comment down in the comment section below.
Again, if you are looking for pricing or specs
for anything that we presented here,
we have links down in the description below.
And if you want to see more videos like this in the future,
please like and subscribe.
Thank you for watching.
(upbeat music)