How To: Pro Tools

Ever hear an echo or delay in your headphones when recording in Pro Tools?  Wanna get rid of it?

The Mix Knob may be the single greatest feature on the Mbox 2. It allows you to get direct, Zero Latency Monitoring

The Mix Knob for Zero Latency

To get rid of latency, follow these easy steps:

1. Plug in – Connect a microphone or instrument to your mbox (if your mic requires phantom power, press in the 48V button)
2. Make a track – Open a Pro Tools session & set up a track to record onto (for help with recording see your “Mbox 2 & Pro Tools” guide, chapter “Record Yourself”  located in Mac HD > Applications > Digidesign > Documentation > LE Hardware)
3. Input Only Monitoring – Go to the Track menu and choose “Input Only Monitoring” (if you see something that says Auto Input Monitoring, go to step 4)
4. Record & Mute – Record enable the track by clicking on the record enable button , then also press the mute button .
5. Mix Knob Left– Turn the mix knob all the way to the left – you should hear yourself in your headphones or speakers note: If you only hear yourself out of one side, press the mono button to hear out of both sides.
6. Set Record Levels – Set your input level into pro tools using the input 1 or input 2 knob – you want the meter to go up into the green, but never hit the red.
7. Set Monitor Level – Once your input level is set, turn up the headphone or monitor knob until you hear yourself at a nice level.
8. Set Mix Knob – Press play in Pro Tools – now turn the mix knob slowly toward the middle until you hear the perfect balance between pro tools playing back, and yourself in the headphones / speakers.
9. Record – Record onto the muted track (it’s muted so you don’t hear the echo/delay/latency, you’re just hearing your direct signal from the left side of the mix knob)
10. Un-Mute – Un-mute the track to playback what you just recorded.

.

After you are done recording your tracks, turn the mix knob all the way to the right so that you hear just Pro Tools playing back.

Note: The mix knob takes some playing with to get used to – just keep twisting it around until it makes sense – you’ll soon learn to love it & wonder how you ever lived without it!

.

More about the Mix Knob…

To the Left

When the mix knob is turned all the way to the left, you only hear direct input signal straight from the mbox (such as your microphone). This is the original signal, before it’s been processed by the computer. So if a song is playing in Pro Tools, you won’t hear it with the mix knob all the way to the left – you’ll only hear INPUT signals.

To the Right

When the mix knob is to the right, you only hear what’s playing OUT of Pro Tools – in essence, you’re hearing the sound after it’s been processed by the computer.

Mixing the Left with the Right

This is why it’s called the Mix Knob. It allows you to blend your pure direct input with the tracks that have already been recorded into Pro Tools, giving you a balance between the two.

Recording & Latency

Latency can make recording difficult if not impossible at times. Latency is the amount of time it takes for the sound to go into the computer, be processed, then come back out. In Pro Tools, the latency you hear is directly connected to the size of the HW Buffer (found under Setup> Playback Engine…)

The larger the HW buffer, the more of a delay, or latency, you will hear, making recording difficult. The smaller the HW buffer, the less latency you will hear. Note: A very small HW buffer takes a lot more processing power from the computer & can result in DAE errors if your computer is a bit older, or if you are running a lot of plug-ins.

Some computers simply can not operate at lower HW Buffer sizes, leaving the Mix Knob as the only viable method of recording.

Mixing & the HW Buffer

A larger HW buffer gives the computer more time to process everything, giving you better performance, allowing you to use more plug-ins in your session. It’s usually a good idea to increase your HW Buffer after you are done recording. The HW Buffer is in the “Setup” Menu, under “Playback Engine”

This entry was posted on Friday, July 10th, 2009 at 1:50 am and is filed under Mbox 2, Mbox 2 Mini, Recording. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.