PT randomly choosing sound card on startup

[Jon_Atkinson]

Hey all,

I'm on Ultimate 2018.7 and I have a few pieces of gear plugged into my rig which the computer can see as a soundcard, ie Analog Four, Analog Heat, iConnect MIDI interface etc....

It seems that PT has suddenly started randomly selecting one of these as the soundcard on startup, rather than my Orion 32....

I never need to use anything other than the Orion 32 (that's what my monitor controller and monitors are plugged into)....

Any way of fixing this? It seems like a new behaviour, even though I've been on 2018.7 for a while, and the A4 and A Heat have been plugged in like this for a while...

I'm aware that the other 'soundcards' are seen by the computer at an OS level...
Obvs done the usual troubleshooting stuff, but still getting this

Thanks in advance

[musicman691]

When the Orion goes missing from being your default PT sound I/O is it still visible in AMS?
Are you using the Orion as part of an aggregate device?
With all these USB devices are they plugged direct into the cheesegrater? If they are you may want to try changing which USB port the Orion is plugged into. I seem to remember that there were intermittent problems with the front panel USB ports for some people.
Is the Orion turned on before you boot up the computer? I know it shouldn't matter but sometimes my 2012 cheesegrater doesn't see it's sound I/O (11 Rack) if it isn't on before the computer is started.

[Jon_Atkinson]

Hey Jack,

Thanks for this.... Yes, the Orion is still available in AMS, and it's actually still available to PT (I just need to select it as a change from whatever PT has decided to use)

The Orion isn't part of an Aggregate (I've always found Aggregate devices to be a bit flakey)

Yes, you're correct about the front panels of the cheesegrater... They're not great (grate..?!) so I don't use them except for plugging the occasional thumb drive in.

The Orion is plugged into it's own non-hubbed USB port on the back of the Mac. The other USB devices are plugged into an Elektron Overhub, but they don't (or at least they're not supposed to) pass audio, just MIDI data etc.

All is behaving exactly as you'd expect, except for PT deciding that it wants to use another piece of hardware as it's soundcard every so often (maybe 25% of the time) on boot up.

All other apps (Ableton, RX etc) are behaving perfectly with the Orion.... I'd say I'm 99% sure it's a PT glitch, but just interesting that it seems localized to my rig.

[musicman691]

I took a look at the compatibility page http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/e...tibility-Chart and strictly speaking PT2018.7 isn't compatible with OSX 10.13.6; the last Avid considers compatible is OSX 10.13.3. This might be part of the problem if not THE problem. Yes it may have worked okay in the past but that's the deal with incompatibilities - they can throw strange things on an oh=otherwise working system.

Something that just hit me - I have a MOTU MIDI Timepiece AVUSB MIDI interface and when it does strange things like not remembering settings it's time to change the CR2032 battery inside. Cheesegraters have one on the motherboard as well. I know on mine I have to pull the video card and the pcie card that has my system ssd on it to get to the battery. You may want to change that battery out - they don't last forever. Any drug store should have them.

[Jon_Atkinson]

Originally Posted by musicman691

when it does strange things like not remembering settings it's time to change the CR2032 battery inside.

Thanks...! I'll give that a try!

[Jon_Atkinson]

Just a quick update...

Updating to PT 2019.6.0 appears to have solved this...

Though it was useful info regarding the internal battery on the Mac, it struck me that this was unlikely to be the sole root cause of the problem (as you'd expect similar behaviour with other DAW's, which were actually behaving as you'd expect). It seemed more like to me to be a PT problem.

So far, 2019.6 is behaving as you'd hope (always choosing the Orion as it's soundcard).... Only updated a couple of days ago, so early days as yet, but so far so good.

[albee1952]

Being on Windows here, not sure if you can twist this around to work for you, but one thing I do is(in Device Manager) is disable stuff(like the HDMI audio that thinks it should be used, no matter what I want). Or I will uninstall drivers for devices I don't want "considered" by Pro Tools.

Having said that, I also have to say I think iConnect may have the worst drivers across the industry and I won't buy another product from them....ever(of course, YMMV)

[Jon_Atkinson]

Originally Posted by albee1952

Having said that, I also have to say I think iConnect may have the worst drivers across the industry and I won't buy another product from them....ever(of course, YMMV)

Yep. Couldn’t agree more. Awful.
I have a fair amount of experience of their products (using them with artists who have bought their products. )
They are the very definition of prosumer


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[amagras]

I think when PT start it tries to load the last driver it was using but if for some reason the driver isn't ready yet (after a restar for example) it will load the next thing in the list, this happens to me with the Windows audio driver that I use for the browser when my KA6 doesn't load correctly on startup. As said above, if you don't need more than one sound device the best thing is to disable the rest in the audio properties (I don't know if this is possible on Macs).