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Updated 20 Oct 2026 · 2 min read

Speakers & Routing ​

Preferences ▸ Speakers adds your own speaker layouts, patches the layout to your output interface and checks the wiring. It's for Speakers monitoring; stereo and Orbit Binaural always use the first two outputs.

Preferences ▸ Speakers: custom layouts with Remove buttons, the routing grid patching 7.1.4 to outputs 1–8, 11–12 and 15–16, and the Speaker test with a button for each speaker and its output

Custom layouts ​

Add your own rig from a speaker layout file (OSLS, .osls), alongside Aro's built-in layouts.

  • Import layout… opens a file dialog. If Aro can't use the file, it says why and adds nothing. Importing a layout Aro already has replaces it.
  • Import from Orbit copies every custom layout from Orbit, once. Orbit's own layouts are only read, never changed.
  • Remove deletes Aro's copy of a layout, with its mixer and patch. Removing the layout in use, or the one Aro starts with, switches to 7.1.4, and Aro says so.

Custom layouts show wherever you choose a layout, marked Custom, and Aro keeps its own copy, so they're there the next time you open it. Layouts can't change while a decode or batch is running.

OSLS is an open format for describing a loudspeaker rig. Read more at osls.io.

Routing ​

  • Speaker layout — the live layout, the same one the layout picker sets.
  • Interface — the output device and how many outputs it has. Change the device in Monitoring.
  • Routing — a grid of speakers against outputs, 16 outputs to a page. Click a cell to send a speaker to an output. Each output carries one speaker; a speaker can feed several outputs.
  • Straight-through puts speaker 1 on output 1, speaker 2 on output 2, and so on.

Aro saves the patch for each layout, so changing interface keeps it, and outputs the new device doesn't have are simply not used. A layout you haven't patched plays straight-through. On a device with fewer than 3 outputs, the grid is off with the reason.

Speaker test ​

Plays pink noise on one speaker at a time. Each speaker's button names its output.

  • The level starts at the −20 dBFS reference each time and goes from −32 to −14 dBFS.
  • It needs Speakers monitoring and a stopped transport.
  • It stops when you press Stop test or Play, open a file, change layout, device or monitoring, or close Preferences.
  • A test on the LFE plays full-band pink noise.
  • The test ignores the mixer.

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