Stereo mixing

[styleruk]

A great video here to get you started...
http://www.avidblogs.com/get-started...-from-scratch/

But, even on here, the guy shows the audio track that pans left to right. I can do this in Audacity and Adobe software, but it just does not work in Pro tools first. I can only assume this is a disabled feature on the free version I got.
Is a shame, because the interface in Pro is so much easier than others and I like the plugins and how simple they are to use, so I'll keep using it for most of my facebook posting stuff and rough recordings, but if I want to churn out something in stereo or even something quickly...audacity wins here...
that is until I learn how to make this stereo work of course.

[JFreak]

First is not restricted to mono

[styleruk]

Originally Posted by JFreak

First is not restricted to mono

OK, that's useful to know. So it's something I'm doing wrong, which is odd because it is so easy to set up. I've also noticed, my drummer sent me a recorded track and he recorded in stereo, normally I would split it in audacity and output just a mono track to work with, but this time I kept it stereo and low and behold, the controls do not pan accross in stereo either! So something is screwy is going on in Pro tools. Seems any other software I use does not do this.
Even after re-installing twice, this is an issue. Am I missing something so bleeding obvious that it's staring me in the face?

[Ben Jenssen]

Originally Posted by styleruk

Let's say I start a project and record simply a guitar channel and a vocal channel through my M-Audio, I set a mono channel for each. when I have finished, I can add a master to control a few things and clean the track up with an EQ etc. but the balance will only act as a volume. EG; I scroll it left and I'll get full volume, as I scroll bast top dead centre to the right, the volume goes down.

What balance are you talking about?

A master track has no balance control. It's a fader to control the stereo main output.

How are you connected?
What are you listening to PT with?

Also, you don't actually need a master track. If you just have pro tools audio going out to a audio interface of some sort, or just to the computer headphones output, just record your mono audio tracks, and start mixing. They all have a balance control to place them left or right in the stereo output, and a fader to control their levels.

[styleruk]

Originally Posted by Ben Jenssen

What balance are you talking about?

A master track has no balance control. It's a fader to control the stereo main output.

How are you connected?
What are you listening to PT with?

Also, you don't actually need a master track. If you just have pro tools audio going out to a audio interface of some sort, or just to the computer headphones output, just record your mono audio tracks, and start mixing. They all have a balance control to place them left or right in the stereo output, and a fader to control their levels.

OK, I mean pan. Let's say I start 2 new mono audio tracks in a new blank session. Then I record to them, say guitar and vocal. If I operate the pan control which should give me left and right 'balance', it don't. Instead it just turns the volume down if I go right. That would suggest, its only recording on a left channel. Seen this before with ancient hardware.
I'm recording through my Air (mentioned above) and outputting to the same.
Do exactly the same with audacity and Adobe software and have no issue. It's the simplest of things, but something is not right in PT for some reason.
I know I don't need a master track. But I've not used Pro tools before and was trying different things.

[JFreak]

First is not restricted to mono playback. You have something wrong in your playback settings


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Ben Jenssen]

Originally Posted by styleruk

If I operate the pan control which should give me left and right 'balance', it don't. Instead it just turns the volume down if I go right. That would suggest, its only recording on a left channel.

No, that would mean that what you're hearing is only the left channel output. Something is wrong with your cabling.

[Lertenserk]

I've made stereo mixing for many years, but I believe it's the only matter of experience. I may advise you to watch as much tutorials and copy the best instructions. After some time you will be able to do everything by yourself.

[styleruk]

Solved.....somehow.

I went through all the wiring and could not find anything I had done wrong, don't really know how I solved it because I put Audacity up next to Pro tools and was getting the issue only on pro tools routing exactly the same.
I then did a ton of messing around setting up windows to monitor instead of my Air monitor, still nothing.
Did my 3rd complete re-install of pro tools and the only real difference I did was clear the registry of things related, that made my machine a complete pro tools virgin. Just like when I first installed it.
and now it works fine. In fact, it seems to fire up a little quicker now as well, that is one bug bear with this software, it is sooooo slow. If I want to lay a track down quick for the drummer to record to, I go audacity. I can fire up audacity, record the track and set a click track and output super quick compared to pro tools. But like I said before, I like the simplicity of the plugins on pro tools.
So it is now solved, but I can't put my finger on what was wrong exactly. I can now do my small stereo additions if I feel the need to.
Thanks for responses.

[Ben Jenssen]

I'm glad it worked out for you.
I guess JFreak might have been right in his insinuation that routing might have been the cause of the problem. You might have inadvertantly done something in the I/O settings to disable the right channel output. Should it happen again, a very basic troubleshooting thing is to go to the I/O settings and select "Default".

Yeah, PT can be slow. It needs powerful hardware, and it hates fighting for resources with other software.

Happy recording, and stay safe.