Understanding Instrument Tracks

[spartikus]

I am fairly new to ProTools but I have been working with comptuer recording for a long time. I have been a Cubase user for years and I love the program but now it's time to expand my knowledge into the realms of ProTools. After looking over the manual for PT 7 and playing around in the software I can't quite seem to grasp the routing of an instrument track. It seems I have to assign an instrument track to a set of physical inputs in order to hear what the instrument is playing but that doesn't make sense to me. I understand the need to assign it to outputs but not inputs. Can someone give me a good overview of the an instrument track. Remember I am coming from the Cubase side of things. Any help would be great.

[spkguitar]

It seems I have to assign an instrument track to a set of physical inputs in order to hear what the instrument is playing but that doesn't make sense to me.

That is true only if you are using older softsynths that aren't 7.x compatible, and even then only with certain softsynths. Try updating the softsynth you are using to the latest version.

I've got a short tutorial on my website that might help, but it already sounds like you have a general grasp of what's going on.

[spartikus]

It looks like that is the problem. I wasn't even thinking about the fact that all my Native Instruments plugins are older. Though I must say, I am running the current version of BFD and it does the same thing to me as well. I guess they haven't made it truly PT 7 compatible yet. I want to ask if there was any audio conflicts when you have to assign a set of inputs to a Instrument Plugin and the actual physical inputs are being used by my keyboard or something else. If it doesn't matter I won't worry about it at this point until I can upgrade my plugins.

[spkguitar]

BFD does not behave that way for me. What version are you using? Is it the lite version? 1.5?

And sharing an input doesn't matter as the instrument plugin cuts off the audio flowing through anyway.

[spartikus]

I just downloaded the latest update and it seems to be working how it should now. I am running the full version of BFD with the Jazz & Funk Expansion. Since you seem to have a good understanding of how midi is looked at in ProTools here's a question for you. I can't seem to keep midi from being transmitted to instrument tracks from my keyboard even when I press the mute in the midi section of the instrument track in Mix view. I can unplug the midi cable but it seems to me there should be some way to keep that from happening.

I came across this running BFD on and instrument track and trying to play my keyboard in at the same time and it kept triggering BFD. Any help you can offer would be much appreciated!

[spkguitar]

With instrument tracks, when an instrument track has focus, the instrument on the track plays. Do you have the BFD track selected when you're trying to play the keyboard?

[spartikus]

Honestly I am not sure so I will go check it out. I assume by focus you mean I have selected the actual track with the mouse and it is highlighted. I will go play and let you know the results.

[spartikus]

Made some progress on my problem. I discovered that the defualt midi thru was turned on to select the first midi or instrument track. When that is enabled it takes all incoming data and passes it to the first or closest midi or instrument track whether record is enabled or not. I went into Preferences > Midi and turned if off and midi is now behaving like I want it to. Now I can only hear the instrument track when I arm the track and it only receives on the assigned midi channel as opposed to all channels no matter what I set it to.

So all is well excpet one thing. There is a [mute] button in that section and it doesn't keep the midi from transmitting so I was wondering if anyone can tell me what it actually does. It seems obvious but it doesn't seem to do anything for me. Any thoughts?