Eleven Rack Playback Engine?

[RoyceSlim]

Hi I'm running Pro Tools 11.3.1 On my Mac OS 10.9.5. I'm using an Eleven Rack as my interface. The problem I'm having in pro tools is with the playback engines. I was able to record a few tracks and play them back fine using a guitar coming through the eleven rack playing through an eleven rack custom rig, but now if my playback engine is set to the Eleven rack, all my tracks are distorted and hard to hear. the only way I can make them clear again is if i switch my playback engine to Pro Tools aggregate I/O. But While in this Playback engine I can't select my Eleven rack inputs to record. I tried every buffer size, and played with all the I/O settings in the Pro tools playback engine trying to record. How can i get the audio clear with the Eleven rack set as my playback engine?

[Darryl Ramm]

Screenshots time... Post all these please
Setup>IO>Output
The mix window showing clearly all tracks and their IO assignments and inserts on each track.
Setup>Playback Engine.
Eleven Rack control window

Possibly you have everything routed through the Eleven Rack guitar rig... If you turn up/down the rig volume (not the main volume knob) does everything change volume?

The easiest place to get started is to use the guitar tracking (or do they call it recording?) session template in Pro Tools.

[RoyceSlim]

With these settings my playback is clear, Its when the playback engine is switches over to the eleven rack my tracks are distorted.

[RoyceSlim]

Changing the rig volume while Eleven rack is selected as my playback engine does not affect the volume of the tracks.

[Darryl Ramm]

Can you get the screenshots for when it is all distorted, and sorry I forgot one.... Can you include the Setup>IO>Bus page and show the Eleven Rack control window expanded (assuming you have the Eleven Rack control software installed as well as Pro Tools).

What exact monitors or amp/speakers are you using and what outputs on the Eleven Rack are they connected to? If the amp has multiple inputs what exact one are you going into with what sort of connector?

If you insert headphones in the Eleven Rack headphone output is the sound through those distorted when playing back from Pro Tools?

.... If it does you could try doing a memory reset on the Eleven Rack... Under user options. That will delete all chsnges/rigs you have modified inside the rack.

[RoyceSlim]

I'm using M-Audio 40 monitors, they are connected to the main output on the eleven rack (XLR). Playback is still distorted through headphones.

The first few times I worked in this project I didn't have any troubles, I was able to record and have clean playback all in the eleven rack playback engine. Now I don't know whats changed, and when trying to open a blank session I still run into this problem.

[Darryl Ramm]

You have the main volume on the Eleven Rack absolutely dimed, that is not going to sound good. You need to turn that down to say 1/3 way up, then adjust the volume in your MAudio monitors to sound good. Gain match, aka iterate both adjustments, to get a volume you want at best sound. You probably have headphone volume set to follow the main volume, which is why that is also distorted.

[RoyceSlim]

playback is distorted at all volumes

[Darryl Ramm]

Well then...

Your mix window screen shot did not include a master fader, do you have one for the main output? What output level is it showing when this distortion happens?

Did you try a memory reset in the eleven Rack? What happened?

Not that it will cause this problem but why do you have a stereo vocal track with L/R inputs from the guitar input/mic input. You would normally be working with mono vocals.

You have some things messed up in the IO settings, not that they will cause this, but you have duplicate/wrong reamp bus assignments. With the a Eleven Rack as playback engine select every path in Setup>Io>Input click the delete button, then click the default button. Repeat for the Output and Bus page. Then in the mix window set each track input and output back to the correct IO.
You tried a completely new empty session using the Eleven Rack recording/tracking template? Try that again after defaulting the IO above. On that session add a stereo audio track, from the Finder drag over a known good sounding mp3 or AIFF file and drop on that stereo audio track. Can you play that track OK?

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

You have the main volume on the Eleven Rack absolutely dimed, that is not going to sound good. You need to turn that down to say 1/3 way up, then adjust the volume in your MAudio monitors to sound good. Gain match, aka iterate both adjustments, to get a volume you want at best sound. You probably have headphone volume set to follow the main volume, which is why that is also distorted.

Not only that but a couple of the guitar tracks have their faders way past zero. Would help if we knew whether the op is using pre or post fader metering. Hopefully he's using the latest drivers for the 11R.

I use the 11R as my audio interface as well and have none of these problems. I run the output volume on the 11R at half way (5.0 on the 11R screen) and both my monitors and headphones plugged directly into the 11R are clean. I don't let any tracks get anywheres near the red in PT.