Pro Tools 11 Beginner

[zedhed]

Originally Posted by btwnthbttns

Getting frustrated again. Have reloaded my 2i2 disc, but now the Scarlett is not an option in PT for i/o. The only choice is the ASIO4ALL. Dead in the water again.

Originally Posted by btwnthbttns

Well, now my Scarlett 2i2 does not seem to appear anymore as an option... Do I need to reinstall the drivers for it?

You mean it's not showing up as an option for playback engine? If this is the case un-install ASIO4ALL drivers and re-install the Scarlett drivers (install with scarlett switched off then reboot with it switched on). Make sure Scarlett is supported in PT11.

If the Scarlett is showing as a playback engine option, but not showing up as an option in the track I/O dropdown menu; Go to Setup>I/O Setup>click Default buton.

BTW, You won't get good performance without a separate 7200 drive to record sessions to. The Western Digital Caviar 'Black' are proven to work well. The higher the cache the better.

A dedicated video card (as opposed to integrated graphics) is strongly advised.

Also, you have mis-matched RAM. Best to have matching sticks.

[Shan]

Originally Posted by btwnthbttns

Good morning from Seattle, Shane! I have checked, and all of my drivers are up to date. I also installed ASIO4ALL.

I was inquiring if you had ASIO4ALL installed, which was part of my assessment to your system.

Originally Posted by btwnthbttns

Is it really imperative that I have a secondary drive and that both drivers are running at 7200?

Ideally, you want the audio drive to be a separate 7200rpm drive as recommended by Avid. It can indeed be an external drive. Sure, you can work on your 5400rpm system drive up to a point, but you'll quickly start getting buffer and performance errors as you start adding tracks and plug-ins etc. The fact that the playhead finally moved using the ASIO4ALL driver indicates your system works with PT. The next step is to get it going with your Focusrite Scarlett. Follow the steps from zedhed above and give that a go.

Shane

[btwnthbttns]

OK. I got things running and can record and playback with the Scarlett. Latency is a problem when recording, and I assume that this is because of the 5400 drive. Next question: Can I stick with the 5400 in the laptop for now and just add the 7200 external drive to "smoothe" things out until I can upgrade the guts in my laptop? Believe it or not, I actually have a Black Caviar 7200 sitting around that someone gave me last summer! Talk about good fortune. Anyway, it is obviously meant to be inserted into a desktop CPU. Is there some kind of case I can put it in soviet is my external drive? If so, how would I connect it to my laptop for use? Through one of my USB ports? Thanks again and again to everyone for their input!!

Matthew

[mesaone]

Originally Posted by btwnthbttns

Latency is a problem when recording, and I assume that this is because of the 5400 drive

Matthew, the latency you are experiencing is probably related to your audio interface. Please check out this link.

The short version is that your audio device has to stream in two directions. Each stream fills up buffers, which then are dumped. Think of it like a bucket brigade.. As a result, you get a bit of delay. The good news is that your interface probably has a "zero latency" monitoring mode which will allow you to monitor whatever you feed into it, before it gets sent to the computer (see above link).

[Shan]

Originally Posted by btwnthbttns

Latency is a problem when recording

In the Playback engine, change the H/W Buffer Size to as low as it can go. You can also use Low Latency Monitoring:

Pro Tools > Options > Low Latency Monitoring

Both those features are explained well in the Pro Tools Reference Guide. Your Focusrite Scarlett also has direct monitor control on the front panel which lets you monitor without any latency. There are many various external enclosures you can use for your separate audio drive. Apparently your laptop also offers a SATA III interface for full support of 6 Gb/s drives, which you can look at down the road.

Shane

[btwnthbttns]

Thanks again, Shane! Any advice on how to put my Caviar drive into some sort of shell or case and how to hook it up to my laptop?

[btwnthbttns]

This is the hard drive that I have available to use: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00348Q8JW

Is this cable, and some sort of case, all that I need: http://www.amazon.com/C2G-Cables-305...ref=pd_cp_pc_0

[btwnthbttns]

And this for an enclosure? http://www.amazon.com/Vantec-NexStar...ve+adapter+kit

[btwnthbttns]

Originally Posted by zedhed

You mean it's not showing up as an option for playback engine? If this is the case un-install ASIO4ALL drivers and re-install the Scarlett drivers (install with scarlett switched off then reboot with it switched on). Make sure Scarlett is supported in PT11.

If the Scarlett is showing as a playback engine option, but not showing up as an option in the track I/O dropdown menu; Go to Setup>I/O Setup>click Default buton.

BTW, You won't get good performance without a separate 7200 drive to record sessions to. The Western Digital Caviar 'Black' are proven to work well. The higher the cache the better.

A dedicated video card (as opposed to integrated graphics) is strongly advised.

Also, you have mis-matched RAM. Best to have matching sticks.

Any recommendations for a dedicated graphics card?

[btwnthbttns]

Originally Posted by Shan

In the Playback engine, change the H/W Buffer Size to as low as it can go. You can also use Low Latency Monitoring:

Pro Tools > Options > Low Latency Monitoring

Both those features are explained well in the Pro Tools Reference Guide. Your Focusrite Scarlett also has direct monitor control on the front panel which lets you monitor without any latency. There are many various external enclosures you can use for your separate audio drive. Apparently your laptop also offers a SATA III interface for full support of 6 Gb/s drives, which you can look at down the road.

Shane

Any suggestions/advice about my questions from late yesterday regarding "building" an external drive?