Pro Tools Changes the Sample Rate

[Lucas Melo]

Hello evryone.
I'm having an issue that seems to caused by my Pro Tools First. I have a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 as my Audio Interface. It seems that the interface is working just fine, since I can hear regular sounds in my computer without problems. It's working with the systems sounds, internet and media players. When I first installed it, it was set automatically to a Sample Rate of 48000 and it seems that, as long as it stays in this Sample Rate, it works fine. However, when I started following the Pro Tools First tutorial (It is a part of the instalation tutorial for the Scarlett 2i2), things stopped working... When I open Pro Tools First, it seems to be fine, so long as I don't open any projects... When I open the "File>Open Project" menu, Pro Tools seems to be setting my Sample Rate to 44100 an assigns a random value to my buffer size... sometimes is 64, sometimes 128, sometimes 256, but not higher than that... By the time this happens, I start to get crunching in my audio... whatever the origin systems sounds, internet, media players and Pro Tools... I can change the Sample Rate back to 48000, but the system imediatelly switches back to 44100... The same happens with the Buffer Size, if I go over 256... It doesn't seem to me to be a problem of the hardware, since it is working well when not in conjunction with Pro Tools, at a 48000 Sample Rate, whichever Buffer Size I choose... I've seen some problems similar to this one, but not quite like it... and the troubleshootings that I've tested didn't seem to solve the issue...

Here are my specs:
AMD FX4300 3,8GHz
8 Gb RAM
Windows 10 x64
Focusrite Scarlett 2i2
Focusrite Control v3.4
Pro Tools First 2019.6

Any help would be greatly apreciated, since I understand that this should be a fairly straight process to make it work... yet I have been struggling with it for almost a week now...

[jeam25]

Hi friend !

Sounds to me that windows is using your scarllet as default playback device. You might want to check windows sound panel options and remove your scarllet as your default playback device.

[Lucas Melo]

Hy Jeam, thanks for the reply.
Windows is, indeed, using it as my primary device, both for Audio Recording and Playback...
I've seen this reply on other similar questions and tried the solution myself... However, when I change the Device to another one, I can no longer use 2i2 to hear anything... According to the tutorial by the manufacturer, I should be able Record and Playback the sound directly from the Interface, and it seems that the only way for it to work is to maintain it as my default device, since when I changed it I had to conect my phones directly in the computer in order to get some playback...

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Lucas Melo

Hy Jeam, thanks for the reply.
Windows is, indeed, using it as my primary device, both for Audio Recording and Playback...
I've seen this reply on other similar questions and tried the solution myself... However, when I change the Device to another one, I can no longer use 2i2 to hear anything... According to the tutorial by the manufacturer, I should be able Record and Playback the sound directly from the Interface, and it seems that the only way for it to work is to maintain it as my default device, since when I changed it I had to conect my phones directly in the computer in order to get some playback...

You have taken the wrong fork and heading down the wrong river. Turn back now. Unplug the headphones from your computer and *never* plug them back in there when working with Pro Tools.

Make sure the headphones volume on the 2i2 is turned up.

What exact headphones do you have?

Make sure the interface is not being used by Windows audio.

The 2i2 has basic hardware monitoring. My suspicion is you have the 2i2 set to fully hardware monitor and you have no live mic etc input to the 2i2 and with the monitor set as you have it you are not hearing playback from the DAW, just those those live inputs with no signal.

You need to read the product manual about hardware monitoring, and play around to understand what all this does. So hopefully you have a mic handy to play with.

If you cannot get hardware monitoring to work, and understand how to use it to monitor live inputs and blend back in DAW output as well... then you may have a faulty 2i2 headphone output, but much more likely to be you are not understanding hardware monitoring.

[Lucas Melo]

Hi Darryl, thanks for the reply.
You need not to worry, I'm not using phones plugged on the computer... I just mentioned it because I have read some replies on Forums and wanted to test if having the 2i2 as a "secondary" device would work and HOW it would work... I understand, though, that it should work properly as my I/O device, whithout the need to other conections...

Now, to your points:

Make sure the headphones volume on the 2i2 is turned up.
R: Is up, that's an easy one :)

What exact headphones do you have?
R: A cheap one. That shouldn't really be a problem though, because I can hear sounds when I'm at 48000 and even at 44100, though with crackling on the later.

Make sure the interface is not being used by Windows audio.
R: As I said, the moment I do this I stop having any audi playback.

The 2i2 has basic hardware monitoring. My suspicion is you have the 2i2 set to fully hardware monitor and you have no live mic etc input to the 2i2 and with the monitor set as you have it you are not hearing playback from the DAW, just those those live inputs with no signal.
R: I don't have much knowledge abou any of this, and I'm not quite sure if I understood what you said here... What I can say though is that I've tried plugging my guitar into the 2i2 and I can hear it with no problem, except that is Crackling... as everything else at 44100... My point really is that I started setting things up accordingly with the manufacturer tutorial and they never said anything about not using the 2i2 as default device 9which the installation procees did on its own, it was not an action form my side)... not only that, they explicitly said that I should be able to hear anything coming from the PC through the 2i2, and when I change it from default device that's no longer possible, so... I doesn't seem to me to be the solution for the problem, since it creates another one...

You need to read the product manual about hardware monitoring, and play around to understand what all this does. So hopefully you have a mic handy to play with.

If you cannot get hardware monitoring to work, and understand how to use it to monitor live inputs and blend back in DAW output as well... then you may have a faulty 2i2 headphone output, but much more likely to be you are not understanding hardware monitoring.

I appreciate the time you took to answer this thread, but "read the manual" is not quite the answer I was expecting (I hope I don't sound too rude saying that) and was hoping that someone who had a similiar experience could give me some advice...

[jeam25]

Hi friend !

Not all interfaces have multiclient drivers and focusite is one of them. I have a clarett 8 pre X and is multiclient i can do whatever i want no matter if the interface is selected by the OS. I can see youtube, netflix use itunes and all of that while using PT. Thats on mac OS and windows, both. On the other hand i know guys using other focusrite interfaces that can't do that saddly.

If you deselect de interface from windows sound panel it will ONLY priving you to monitor the OS through the interface but Protools should work perfect. If PT is not then you have to check what is selected on PT playback settings. If it is seleceted then you have to go to focusrite dwonloads and look for the lastest driver. The updated the driver a few days ago so it is a good time to check anyway.

Edited and p.s : Also try Asio4all driver. I see a lot of guys using it with scarllet interfaces because of similar issues with PT first.

Hope this helps !

[Lucas Melo]

Hi Darryl, thanks for the reply.
You need not to worry, I'm not using phones plugged on the computer... I just mentioned it because I have read some replies on Forums and wanted to test if having the 2i2 as a "secondary" device would work and HOW it would work... I understand, though, that it should work properly as my I/O device, whithout the need to other conections...

Now, to your points:

Make sure the headphones volume on the 2i2 is turned up.
R: Is up, that's an easy one :)

What exact headphones do you have?
R: A cheap one. That shouldn't really be a problem though, because I can hear sounds when I'm at 48000 and even at 44100, though with crackling on the later.

Make sure the interface is not being used by Windows audio.
R: As I said, the moment I do this I stop having any audi playback.

The 2i2 has basic hardware monitoring. My suspicion is you have the 2i2 set to fully hardware monitor and you have no live mic etc input to the 2i2 and with the monitor set as you have it you are not hearing playback from the DAW, just those those live inputs with no signal.
R: I don't have much knowledge abou any of this, and I'm not quite sure if I understood what you said here... What I can say though is that I've tried plugging my guitar into the 2i2 and I can hear it with no problem, except that is Crackling... as everything else at 44100... My point really is that I started setting things up accordingly with the manufacturer tutorial and they never said anything about not using the 2i2 as default device 9which the installation procees did on its own, it was not an action form my side)... not only that, they explicitly said that I should be able to hear anything coming from the PC through the 2i2, and when I change it from default device that's no longer possible, so... I doesn't seem to me to be the solution for the problem, since it creates another one...

You need to read the product manual about hardware monitoring, and play around to understand what all this does. So hopefully you have a mic handy to play with.

If you cannot get hardware monitoring to work, and understand how to use it to monitor live inputs and blend back in DAW output as well... then you may have a faulty 2i2 headphone output, but much more likely to be you are not understanding hardware monitoring.

I appreciate the time you took to answer this thread, but "read the manual" is not quite the answer I was expecting (I hope I don't sound too rude saying that) and was hoping that someone who had a similiar experience could give me some advice...

[Lucas Melo]

Originally Posted by jeam25

Hi friend !

Not all interfaces have multiclient drivers and focusite is one of them. I have a clarett 8 pre X and is multiclient i can do whatever i want no matter if the interface is selected by the OS. I can see youtube, netflix use itunes and all of that while using PT. Thats on mac OS and windows, both. On the other hand i know guys using other focusrite interfaces that can't do that saddly.

If you deselect de interface from windows sound panel it will ONLY priving you to monitor the OS through the interface but Protools should work perfect. If PT is not then you have to check what is selected on PT playback settings. If it is seleceted then you have to go to focusrite dwonloads and look for the lastest driver. The updated the driver a few days ago so it is a good time to check anyway.

Edited and p.s : Also try Asio4all driver. I see a lot of guys using it with scarllet interfaces because of similar issues with PT first.

Hope this helps !

Hey, thanks again for replying... Though that's not the recomendation from the tutorial by the manufacterer i tried it... Sadly, that doesn't solve the issue... I still get crackling, even if the Focusrite is not selected as my Defalt Playback device... I can here PT sounds, because it is selected as Playback Device on PT, but the problem with crackling looks exactly the same... And I still can't change Sample Rate or Buffer Size without PT changing it back... So, really, changing the Playback Device on Windows so that Focusrite is not the Default had zero impact on the problem... By the way, my driver is the latest one, the 3.4... but i guess I should try this Asio4all...