M box, and PROTOOLS users, I have a question

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future man

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Or, a few rather. I just got myself an M box today, and an Oktava condenser mic, and I am insanley in love with them as a whole... However, as usual, I have questions!! First off...

How do you turn your M box off? Or do you just leave it all on with the mics n stuff when you're not even using it...

Second....

Pro tools is bad ass. But I've tried every thing, and I mean every thing, to get the click track to work. I set it all up, but I don't ever get any clicks. Ever. What am I doing wrong?

Next...

When you are recording an acoustic guitar, how do you get the levels right? I recorded a whole song which sounded perfectly level in my head phones, but when I hooked up my speakers, it was real quiet, even cranked full blast.

I think that's it. If I think of anymore, I'll be baaaack!
 
Hey, congrats on the new toy!

You've got some goooood questions: easy enough to resolve, but hopefully i can explain it well...

power- turn it off by unplugging it from the computer, or just leave it on. I'd at least turn off the phantom power on the back of it.

Click track...

Um...this is from memory as my computer is recording rig is tied up with disk stuff at the moment...

Create an Aux track. They usually appear with the volume all the way down so Control-Click on it to set it back up to 0.

Insert the click plugin on the Aux track. I think that it pops up some options for picking what sounds you want.

That should do it... but also be sure that Low Latendy Monitoring is NOT selected (I think under Operations?) so that the realtime effects will work on the Aux tracks. Again, this is from memory. Try it and I'll try it, too, when I get a chance.

Oops- gotta run. More later if I can get back to you.

chris
 
awesome, thank you. that click did work after making it an aux track... however, i can only get it to come out of my speakers from my integrated sound card. i want it to go through the mbox, and into my headphones! haha. any pointers on that one???
 
Weird! I don't know of any way that PT would be addressing your standard soundcard UNLESS it was assigning the output of the Click plug to your internal MIDI device.

Open up that Click plug and see what output options it gives you. If there is an audio click (as opposed to a midi click) then select that. I'm still doing mass moves of data on my recording machine or I'd start it up and find out myself...

Now, as for that low level guitar...

You have to set the levels appropriately on the way IN. On the Mbox, that's done with the gain knobs at the top. Before recording your guitar, look at the meter in the mix window right next to the track you are recording on and see how high it goes up. Adjust the gain knob until its pretty high but never lights the top up red, even at the loudest part.

That's my guess for what's going on with the guitar level- the input gain is set to low and you've made up for it with the headphone level.

Oh- had another thought. Play around with the knob right above the headphone knob. I think it say "playback' on one side and "monitor" on the other. The blends direct output from whatever you are recording with the sound being played back from PT. You may have the playback level too low.

Its a weird feature of the mbox, but it lets you get around latency- and could cause the strange volume drop you are noticing.

Take care,
Chris
 
hey future,

What I always do for a click track is just mic a metronome program I have on my computer... I just mic the computer speakers and then mute it when the song is done ready to be bounced. Also, w/ the guitar levels you were talking about, try to record your tracks so that the waveforms get as close to clipping as possible (but don't let them clip, it will be obvious during monitoring and you can't get it out during the mix) I hope that's some help for you
 
An easy click track system for any DAW is to record a click sound then past it to a couple of beats. Select those clicks then repeat past them to the rest of the song. Save that as a template to use on any new projects and when you change the tempo it will realign the click track.
 
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