IO Setup management

[gguardia]

Hi, I get a lot of different sessions with all kinds of io setups using all sorts of different interfaces and often my IO setup gets completely mangled as a result. Often it will get so messed up that I can't even choose the outputs for my device as they get greyed out and/or overwritten by new outputs I've never seen.

I've also ran into the problem of sending out a session and having the recipient tell me the outputs come up as something different than what I saved them as, which is a problem because often times the people getting the session get stumped trying to fix it.

Can someone explain to me how exactly ProTools chooses to keep which settings and/or has anyone maybe found an elegant solution to this problem?

[C]

Do not think of IO Setup as being like it was in PT7 and lower it is a different beast with much more power.

1/ Analyse your setup

Are you in editorial and have a 5.1 setup and that's it? Are you on Mix stage and feeding a console?

2/ Setup up your outputs

Whatever you feed (speakers, Console) setup that number of outputs. If you Feed a console with 5.1 stems also set up mono outputs 'underneath' the 5.1's that completely cover all your outputs. Once you have done this Uncheck/Deselect the Sessions Overwrite box. Everything else can happen on your busses page.

3/ Make the busses page work for you.

It MAPS. Don't worry about Channel configuration being L C R LS RS LF it will map correctly to your outputs page configuration, however that may be.

Multiple 5.1 Paths? Select them all and MAP them to your 5.1 Outputs do not change the outputs of the tracks in the mix/edit window, MAP them in the busses page.

4/ Keep a Clean PT session somewhere that you can open (with the Sessions Overwrite Enabled/Checked) to get back to your happy place.



Works if you work it, but it can be a whole heap of work.

Let me know if I can be of help,

C