A few PT problems. Troubleshoot me

Schwarzenyaeger

Schwarzenyaeger

Formerly "Dog-In-Door"
I just started Pro Tools up after a month of using Ableton and something went wrong. I never updated it but everything is changed.


There is a big problem when recording my guitar using Guitar Rig 5 as a plug-in. When I listen to the recording, the sound is delayed by a few MS and is completely out of time. I checked by double tracking a riff. It sounded completely out of time when I was playing with the recording but it sounded in time with each other when I played both tracks back. I guess this has something to do with the plug-in since POD guitar amps work fine.


Also, whenever I start PT up for the first time, it always has me restart it once since "I/O was changed" even though I never touch a thing.

I also can't zoom into my tracks anymore either. I forgot if I used + and - or my mousewheel but both don't work anymore. I can only do it manually through mouse clicks at the top left.
 
Schwarzenyaeger said:
There is a big problem when recording my guitar using Guitar Rig 5 as a plug-in. When I listen to the recording, the sound is delayed by a few MS and is completely out of time. I checked by double tracking a riff. It sounded completely out of time when I was playing with the recording but it sounded in time with each other when I played both tracks back. I guess this has something to do with the plug-in since POD guitar amps work fine.
Click to expand...
What you're hearing is probably latency.
The recording goes down in perfect time, but what you hear is delayed.
This is always present in digital recording unless you have some kind of hardware monitoring.
You can adjust the amount of latency but there is a tradeoff in that it pushes the computer harder.

Go to Setup>Playback engine and adjust the buffer size from, presumably, 1024 to 128 or 256. The effect should be much less audible.



Schwarzenyaeger said:
Also, whenever I start PT up for the first time, it always has me restart it once since "I/O was changed" even though I never touch a thing.
Click to expand...

Yeah, PT is just shit when it comes to remembering device choices and settings.
"I/O was changed" usually happens if you save a session using one interface and open it using another.
If, for example, you opened your session without the interface connected, this would happen.



Schwarzenyaeger said:
I also can't zoom into my tracks anymore either. I forgot if I used + and - or my mousewheel but both don't work anymore. I can only do it manually through mouse clicks at the top left.
Click to expand...

The keyboard shortcuts for zoom in and zoom out are R + T.
If this doesnt work then keyboard shortcuts are disabled. Go to the edit window and look near the top right.
You should see a small square with a/z written in it. Click that and try R+T again.

Hope that helps.
 
Hey Steenamaroo,

the problem I'm having is actually the exact reverse! I'm hearing it in time when I play normally but when recorded and then heard back, it comes out delayed.
What's weird is that only the guitar tracks comes back delayed, the drums are coming in perfectly on time with the metronome...


We never change interface, I don't know what PTs problem is :/




Also, I can't hear my guitar when I listen back to the recording and I'm not actively recording it. AFAIK, I should be able to hear my guitar if the track it's running through is armed but not recording as well.
 
Schwarzenyaeger said:
I'm hearing it in time when I play normally but when recorded and then heard back, it comes out delayed.
Click to expand...

Schwarzenyaeger said:
It sounded completely out of time when I was playing with the recording but it sounded in time with each other when I played both tracks back.
Click to expand...

Which is it?

The opposite problem could be caused by the plugin introducing delay so do you have delay compensation turned on?

With regard to input monitoring (that's what it's called), you should find it in one of the menus.
If it's off you can only hear yourself whilst recording. If it's on you can also hear yourself whilst the track is record armed.

Did the other tips work out for you? No need to thank me. ;)
 
It seems to boil down to Guitar Rig creating a delay in the processing. If I record a track "raw" without any amp sims, it comes out on time but when I let Guitar Rig "work" the track, it goes out of time.

Do you know anything about fixing that? It works perfectly fine in Ableton.



Thanks so far :)

(p.s. couldn't find the option for "Input monitoring", google wasn't helpful either)
 
Well, like I say, there are two ways it can work.
Basically to hear yourself in time whilst recording you'd want to have the buffer setting down quite low and delay compensation engine turned off. The latter only makes a difference if the ADC is actually doing something, like in a busy mix.

If thinks are out of time during playback, which is much less likely to be noticeable, then you want to turn ADC on to compensate for this.
I've only ever really noticed this in cases where I have parallel process (phasing sound makes it obvious) or when using pitch correction tools that introduce massive latency.

Really, if you just create a new session and set the buffer size to 128 there shouldn't be any noticeable problem.
Try that, please, and let me know if it works out. Maybe there's something more at work here?



It's actually "Input only monitoring" and it's under the 'track' menu.
My mistake. :)
 
I can only switch between 512 and 1024 on my friend's Focusrite 2i4 in the "Playback Engine" options. Is this the right place to look?

There is no "Input only monitoring" in the track drop down menu. I'm running PT10, is it a newer feature?
 
Sounds strange.
I don't know your interface but I've never seen one that was limited to 512.
I am, indeed, using ProTools 10. (10.3.8?)

Is there any chance you don't have the correct drivers installed for the interface?
Are you on windows? You may have to adjust buffer size in a focusrite application, if there is one.
 
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Hey,

I couldn't get Guitar Rig, the Focusrite and PT to work together so I dropped it. I'm just going to use my other interface with a different amp sim that doesn't lag from now on.
I still can't explain why the exact same setup works perfectly fine in Ableton though and lags on PT...


Thanks for trouble shooting with me though :)
 
I do have the correct drivers and didn't find anything but a "delay meter" which let me set times between 1 and 10 ms.

I might have to dig deeper but for now I'm rather fed up with all the "quirks" that PT has been putting me through...
 
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