Some audio is not muted but acts muted

[LizziF]

So I have something weird going on. I opened up an old session. It opened fine, all the audio waveforms are there. But no sound is playing for just the vocal tracks. I think in an earlier version of PT, I had muted these to use as background tracks. I tried to mute/unmute/solo with no sound coming out no matter what I do.

The track does not show muted, but the track is acting like it is muted. No sound is playing. I copied the wave file to an new track and it plays fine. I can just fix it all by copying the audio files to new tracks. But I was really curious as to why this is occurring.

Another weird thing is that when I click on the track with the grabber tool, the Spot Dialogue box comes up. I've probably done something to these tracks, but I don't know what I did.

I'll probably just go through and copy the audio to new tracks. But any ideas as to how to fix it will be tried.
Thanks!

[john1192]

Originally Posted by LizziF

So I have something weird going on. I opened up an old session. It opened fine, all the audio waveforms are there. But no sound is playing for just the vocal tracks. I think in an earlier version of PT, I had muted these to use as background tracks. I tried to mute/unmute/solo with no sound coming out no matter what I do.

The track does not show muted, but the track is acting like it is muted. No sound is playing. I copied the wave file to an new track and it plays fine. I can just fix it all by copying the audio files to new tracks. But I was really curious as to why this is occurring.

Another weird thing is that when I click on the track with the grabber tool, the Spot Dialogue box comes up. I've probably done something to these tracks, but I don't know what I did.

I'll probably just go through and copy the audio to new tracks. But any ideas as to how to fix it will be tried.
Thanks!

system info please ..

pic's / screenshots help ..

any automation that you do not know is there on the track in question ??

more info ...

[Ben Jenssen]

To me this sounds like you need to re-assign the tracks' output. The old system's output might have been named differently than the new.

The spot dialogue, change modes to slip, shuffle, or grid.

IHTH.

[c-tone]

Try removing and/or deactivating the plug-ins on the track with the issue. Sometimes deactivating and reactivating the track will fix this issue too.

[Tom Case]

Hi, I had the same thing happen to me recently.

I was opening up a session that wasn't recorded that long ago. 12.4 about 3 months ago (I've been on 12.4 since i went to 12, and still there)

Back up vocal were just disapearing, it was maddening. It only seemed to attack back up vocals, lol.

I tried all the tricks. Trash everything. Importing new sessions. Duplicate track. Same deal, various tracks just disappeared. When i first started listening they were there. Halfway through listening, and sadly bounce, just dropped out.

I finally just froze all the tracks, and finished the mix.That seemed to fix it.

Crazy thing, if i looked at the tracks that were no longer audible you could still see the gain reduction that the compressors were doing, so protools saw the audio, just didn't let it go out.

My only help i guess, is hope you like your EQ and dynamics, freeze, and then move faders.

It's only happened to me this one time, and I've been here a long time with this software. But you are not crazy.

Tom

[StefB]

I get this with 2.7 on Mac Yosemite often - fresh sessions.

Sometimes the clip will play - drag it to another track and that track stops playing as though it is muted. I have pinned the problem to clips coming off an aaf (2 x mono channels pulled into stereo channel) where the duration of the two mono clips are slghtly different (only obvious when zooming in). I cannot remember the previous time I had this issue some time ago (think it was 11.3?) - which was not related and was fixed in the next update.

[Goombot]

I've been having this issue on and off throughout PT 12. I had an issue, then it seemed to get fixed and now it's back. I thought maybe 12.7.1 would fix it but it hasn't. I am working with audio that all comes off an AAF so maybe it has something to do with that. What happens with me is that the audio is there, but there is no sound and nothing on the meter. Nothing fixes it unless you quit protools and then open it back up and then the audio that wasn't playing plays instantly. It's VERY FRUSTRATING. It seems to happen at random during sessions and it always happens when I close a session and then open it back up. So basically every time I close a session I quit PT now. It's a drag. I don't know what AVID did but they are the kings of breaking something, fixing it, then breaking it again. I've tried moving audio, deactivating tracks, changing outputs.. none of it works except quitting PT and restarting. I can't believe more people aren't talking about this issue. Also there seems to be no order in which tracks don't play. Very strange and very much a waste of time.

[arche3]

Can you consolidate all audio so it makes new audio files? Maybe that will fix it.

[studiofreq]

**ooops, my version solved*** See below.
It's BAACK! Random section of a clip is muting consistently - but meters and plugins all behaving normally indicating audio is there. No track muting visible. No automation anywhere, just a sudden mute for a bout 2 seconds. Running Big Sur and Pro Tools Ultimate 2021.6.0
Even pasting audio that is working fine just a couple seconds earlier in the timeline is also muted in that specific point. Restarting didn't fix anything. Duplicating track including playlist didn't fix. Pasting into a new track didn't fix. Sliding a different section of the audio clip into that point in time also muted. Brought the clip into a different bus and no muting. At this point seems to be something with the bus/routing folder......ok, checking all automation again, I DID find automation in the folder track. I also found the track was in "touch" mode...which I had been automating in earlier for volume. I MUST have muted the track at some point because I found two other spots muted as well. Problem solved for me on this one anyway. Rather than deleting this post, I'll leave it in hopes it helps someone else to check their "mute" view on a summing folder.