No Mic sound on record
 

Hello. For 4 years eveything was fine until two days ago a pop-up said my USB didnt have enough power. So I fixed that with a powered multi USB tap. Now everything powers on just perfectly. When i hit the space bar everything plays fine/ Vocals and playback music. The problem is that my Mic input has no sound. I press the record button and whatnot but no sound. There is playback music going but no volume from the mic. I have checked the cords and plugs & everything seems fine. All switches seem to be... switched. Please help. Its like I have something muted somewhere but I am extremly careful messing with things in the settings that i know nothing about. Thank you for your time.

-Steven Bluth

Re: No Mic sound on record
 

How about some system info? Can't trust that the meager stuff in your profile is correct and even if it is it's nowheres near enough to diagnose your problem. Try following the 'help us to help you' that's at the top of every page here.

Re: No Mic sound on record
 

Thank you. What info would u need? I am running Mac OS X (10.7.5) 2.3 Ghz, 4GB Ram. An M-audio C400 interface. I will glady answer anymore tech questions because I am greatful for your help.

Re: No Mic sound on record
 

My first thought is your phantom power (P48) isn’t flipped on for your mic input.

Re: No Mic sound on record
 

In addition to the above is your Mac a laptop or desktop and which model? I keep going back to your original post where you say an error message popped up saying your USB didn't have enough power. Never seen that message before on a Mac. I could see it on a laptop running under battery power as any heavy load like an interface will suck the life right out of the onboard batteries.

Re: No Mic sound on record
 

I’ve seen this lots over the years with desktop Macs. Has nothing to do with batteries. It happens when multiple bus powered devices are connected in a chain that exceed the specs for USB bus power: 500mA for USB2, 900mA for USB3. Common culprits: using the newer Mac keyboards and then plugging in large USB3 thumb drives into the keyboard. Too many ilok2 keys plugged into an un-powered hub. Using multiple Bluetooth or RF receivers (for input devices like the Logitech MX mouse) in the keyboard USB ports.

The newer Mac keyboards come up a lot because they draw more power than older ones and then if the 2 USB2 ports (which makes it an unpowered hub) on them are used for high-powered usb devices, it exceeds the limits set forth by USB. The solution is always a powered USB hub. And in Macs, the only way to restart the USB port (it shuts itself down for safety if the power draw is exceeded) is to restart the computer. In essence, USB learned from the mistakes of FireWire where motherboards would fry or ports die because of exceeding the power limitations.

Re: No Mic sound on record
 

That's surprising about the current draw on an iLok2 - didn't think they were that power hungry. Bluetooth and RF receivers I can see that they would draw a lot of current.

When you say newer Mac keyboards I assume you're talking about the recently discontinued by Apple thin wired keyboards versus the old original full travel keyboards right? I'd hate to see what the current draw is on an aftermarket lighted Mac keyboard I recently saw for sale online.

c400 no mic in sound
 

Hello. I have a Fast Track C400. Everything works great except there is suddenly no sound from my Microphone INPUT! I can work on projects, mix, save, open, close... last week I opened PT and my MIC INPUT gave me no sound at all. The meter on the Fast Track C400 didnt light up. I clicked all of the correct buttons on the interface and solved nothing! Another strange thing is that when I plugged my headphones into the C400 I could of course hear my project, and if I wanted to watch a helpful YOUTUBE video I had to remove my heaphones from the C400 and plug them directly into the laptop that was operating the C400 to hear the video. Now that same YOUTUBE sound can be heard perfectly through the interface, and the volume knob on the interface can now be used to adjust the YouTube Volume. WTF? Please help

I am running:
PT9
Mac OS 10.7.8
2.3 GHz Intel i5
16gb Ram - 1333 MHz DDR3
M-Audio Fast Track C400

Re: c400 no mic in sound
 

You need to spend some time understanding your Mac. You can hear YouTube thought the interface now because that is set as your sound output device in Audio MIDI setup. You need to spend some time playing with Audio MIDI setup on your Mac to understand all that it can do.

Now troubleshoot the other problem:

What exact playback engine do you have selected in Pro Tools? What C400 driver version?

Lots more info needed. When you say "no sound" what exactly does that mean? No sound while monitoring/tracking? What about track meter movements or waveforms in Pro Tools? What exact mic, what is the preamp gain set to? phantom power on if needed? are you trying to hardware monitor of software monitor though Pro Tools? etc.

The C400 has hardware monitoring. Start by seeing if you can hear audio from the microphone in headphones connected to the C400 using hardware monitoring, do that without Pro Tools running. If you do not understand hardware monitoring read about the Driver Control panel in the user guide. Do you hear stuff? Do the input meters on the C400 and in the driver control panel move as expected? That checks if the mic, cable, phantom power, preamp and parts of the interface are working, you have the gain up correctly, etc. etc. So start there.

Re: c400 no mic in sound
 

what playback engine
The driver was downloaded from PT. As far as I know, it is the latest version.
When I play a project, I have sound. Ever sound is there! Bleep, or beeps, or vocals. All sounds are present, but when I plug my vocal Mic into the unit, there is no sound in the session. Its like the Mic is off. I have tried phanton power Mic and a non-phanton Mic. Neither on will give me sound. The meter in the session does NOT move meaning it is not picking up any vocals. The meter on the C400 do NOT light up either. There is no sound in my monitors from the mics or thru the headphones.