Serious Help Needed, Newb Here.

[Rynojackax]

Okay guys, I've had it with Pro Tools. I got an MBox 3Gen for Christmas that came with Pro Tools Express. I come from FL Studio, which the MBox works fine with.

My problem is this, I play bass. I want to lay down bass tracks but can not simply record anything. My bass only gets picked up when it's in an instrument track. And even when I try to record it as an instrument track, it won't play back anything since midi is a transfer of data. (Which I assume instrument tracks are only for midi). I can import audio samples and those will playback, but I simply can't get the bass to play in an audio track. All of the I/O seems right, I mean I only have an MBox hooked up to the computer, and that's my input. (Analog 1 Mono), which is where my bass is plugged into, the interface is correctly set up. And I mean nothing works. Not even a mic.

And for not getting a sound out for four months has almost made me go nuts. I've looked everywhere, but can't find anything on how to fix this. Maybe I just lack knowledge of Pro Tools. I can hook the input into FL the same way and I get sound instantly. I have signal to the box, just not from the box to the laptop. BUT if it's an instrument track, I have audio, just my bass guitar isn't midi, lol.

I'm in some serious help cause I'm about to say screw it to all Avid Products all together. Thank you all.

[JFreak]

Welcome to the forum :)

I believe your I/O setup is fine, if you get the sound somehow.

So just create an audio track, record arm it, and hit play. Take a look at the waveform (EDIT window) and if it shows something other than flat line it's recording. If you don't hear anything, you need to check your output routing then. But if you already got sound somehow, I believe your I/O setup is fine, so just take a look at what is the output of the audio track. Route it to the output where you have your monitors connected and it should be just fine.

Pro Tools Reference Guide is also a good read. It's over a thousand pages so use the index.

[1racerx]

I'm having the same issue with PT11 and the m-box. It's not the mbox interface because I can hear the bass through my monitors. So it's working with the computer. The box is also showing strong signal on the indicator bar. It's weird because I just recorded a new audio track sample yesterday with no problems. I've had this problem before when creating new audio guitar tracks. (no signal in an existing project) It's almost as if there's a limiting audio track function for a demo version or something. I've duplicated a guitar track that's using metaplugin, the 7 band equalizer with a head and distortion and I'm getting plenty of signal, which I will alter for the bass. The sound coming out of the monitors is coming in at a very low volume, I'm wondering if this might be a frequency issue or the bass has to be played through a amp in protools. If anyone has any idea what's going on I'd love to hear suggestions..

[1racerx]

Update.. Solution 1) You're going to have to crank the input gain for a bass on the m-box much higher than for a guitar. This may or may not sound poopy and will all depend on your bass pickups. (sounds like crap on mine)
Solution 2) Use a bass head sim/plugin to get the amplification you need, and the sound adjustment you want. (Better Option)

Pro Tools seems to have an issue with possibly "saving" the project under a different name or maybe too many "saves." (the only other things I've done)
Which won't allow you (in an existing project) to create a new "Audio" guitar or bass track. It also won't allow me to use the "Eleven Free" heads/plugins. (tracks are armed)

[fresh vibe studio]

You should be able to easily plug a bass into the instrument jack on the Mbox.
Are you positive you are using a audio track to record on. Does it have the record light that goes red for you. Are you seeing a signal in the meters before you record. When you might think you are recording does it flash on and off or stay lit.