Pro Tools is clipping only in new sessions

[Waff]

Hi.

I have been using eleven rack sine 2011/2012 and it has always worked great for me.

I started a new session and it has started clipping. I opened an older session from a year ago and it sounded fine from what i could tell.

But anything new that i record, clipping. Why is pro tools clipping.

EDITING THIS POST TO GIVE MORE INFORMATION:

When i play the guitar in eleven just casually, it doesn't clip.

90% sure that when i record as well, it doesn't clip either. Hard to say on this.

but when i record atrack and PLAY IT BACK in pro tools, that is where the track begins to start clipping. I bounced the file to play it in vlc, still clipping.

I am aware that it is crhistmas time and people are with their famlilies. Please help me when you can.

- waff the master.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJvmCytQRjY

this guy is using pro tools 12 so it doesnt work for me, i have to use another method.

The problem is the OUTPUT on my eleven rack. How do i change the eleven racks OUTPUT.

SECOND EDIT:

I went into my gutiar tone and went into the settings wehre it shows your pedals, amp models, ect and it said "INPUT' (remember this is INPUT not OUTPUT) so it could be a differt situation.

I lowered the input all the way down and recorded a shorrt guitar line - still clipping. But again, when i play in the eleven rack, and when i reocrd, IT DOES NOT CLIP.

It clips, when i play back IN PROTOOOLS.

I dont think the elven rack is the problem here. I think it is either:

A: The way the eleven rakc translates the track in pro tools

or B: It's pro tools itself and thew ay the track plays in p rotools.

help.

[Darryl Ramm]

Hi Welcome to DUC.

You don't give us a clear picture of what *exactly* you are looking at or how you are determining something is clipping. Are you looking at a Pro Tools meter clip indicator? On the master fader for the main outputs? Or on that one wet audio track you are recording? And If you don't have a master fader track on your main outputs make that visible now and set the master fader meter type to Pro Tools classic (heck set them all to classic to start with).

Or is the problem what you hear? Or both? You need to try to give us a simple clear description of what you are exactly seeing and/or hearing.

I'm also lost why you linked to a video about crackling problems. Are you having crackling problems? If so that's a whole different troubleshooting route than other many other clipping related problems.

Is the clip indicator going off because of a persistent excursions into clipping or are you getting this triggered by transient clicks/crackling etc. If it helps Zoom into the waveform and look if this is happening.

Assuming it's *not* clicking/transients etc. -

What exact release and version of Pro Tools? There have been metering changes over the years.

Has anything changed? Have you changed Pro Tools versions - esp. that may have changed the Pro Tools meter types? If so try reset them to Pro Tools Classic with default color break points etc. in Pro Tools preferences.

When you are tracking have the recording tracks in pre-fader metering, and set a long persistence on the meter you should have no doubt about whether the track has clipped or not. Set the clip indicator persistence to infinite if needed. Same when playing that track back, putting the meter in pre-fader metering will tell you for sure if you have input clipping or if something later on in the mix is set up wrong.

Clipping on a wet rig output track on the Eleven Rack is trivial to get to happen, you might have maybe half a dozen or more different gain settings through an Eleven Rack rig. Metering in the Eleven Rack signal flow itself can help you work out what levels are happening through the rig. But ultimately you look at the level coming into Pro Tools in pre-fader metering mode, if it's too hot you work out what you need to pull that level down. And there is no need to "track-hot" give yourself a good 6dB or so headroom above peaks and you can always make that gain up later in mixing.

And if you've also tracked the dry signal (which you should always do then reconstituting any of this and finding out why you are getting clipping should be quite doable. Clipping from transients or other problems might be a little harder to track down. If you are not tracking dry and not using reamping, then that is where I'd start, and doing that will likely help you solve what else is going on here.

If it is clicking/transients etc. -

Is the Eleven Rack the playback engine or or is it connected to your interface as an outboard box? If it's connected digitally how is the clocking set up between the boxes?

Does moving the guitar around, moving volume and tone knobs, touching pickups or wiggling cables etc. cause signal spikes?

Is there couplng of spikes through either the power cables or radio frequencies into the guitar? i.e. Can you see these spikes on the dry signal track, are they mostly independent of moving the guitar around, tapping the guitar/wiggling things etc. Try moving the guitar away from/turning off unneeded electrical devices. Things like refrigerator and HVAC motors, other appliance etc. can cause awful signal spikes at times. If these things are problems you should be able to hear them playing live into the Eleven Rack. The USB connection the the computer might exacerbate some signal pickup.

[Waff]

Eleven rack is the playback engine.

Should i re install protools?

The thin gis, these same tracks sounded fine like 2 days ago. Now all of a sudden they are clipping. and any new tracks that i madke - clipping. It's nuts and its driving me craaazy.

I don't think that the eleven rack is the problem i think it's pro tools. There must be some setting i can select in pro tools to make the clipping stop.

If I were to downgrade to pro tools 10, can i import the session data from pt 11 sessions? Can i go backrwads? Or no?

I will reinstall 11 and see if that helps.

[Darryl Ramm]

Nothing you are suggesting is anything I would do. If I thought anything was worthwhile doing I would have suggested it. Reinstalling Pro Tools etc. is all likely a waste of time.

The most likely cause of this is something you are doing or some confusion on your part. Right now we don't even know what type of problem you are seeing. If you want effective help here you should focus on clearly describing what is going on, and answering the questions I've already asked. And that will help, including if it does happen to be some hardware or software issue.

[Waff]

Darryl hi.

The tracks are clipping all over the place. Not sure how much more clear i could be.

I installed REAPER and tracked some guitars.

the guitars with eleven rack, in reaper, sounded fine. there was zero clipping or unwanted noise.

Why is pro tools clipping. The tracks sounded fine a few day sago when they were recorded, but now playing back the tracks are clipping here and there. I am not sure how much more clear I could be. Why are the tracks clipping.

[Darryl Ramm]

I cannot guess. You need to explain what is going on, answer some, as many as you can of the questions I have already asked.

What do you mean by "clipping"? Are you looking at the Pro Tools meter clip indicator? Did you reset the meter types/settings to Pro Tools classic ans I suggested?

"clipping all over the place" is a non-description. What *exactly* are you seeing?

Are you in pre or post-fader metering mode?

Start at the input/beginning and work out if things are OK there... What does the recorded wet track show in pre-fader metering? Did it clip on recording or not?

Do you have a master fader track instantiated? What is the meter on that doing?

And all earlier questions.

Any terms you don't understand ask about, and/or search for in the Pro Tools reference guide.

[Waff]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

I cannot guess. You need to explain what is going on, answer some, as many as you can of the questions I have already asked.

What do you mean by "clipping"? Are you looking at the Pro Tools meter clip indicator? Did you reset the meter types/settings to Pro Tools classic ans I suggested?

"clipping all over the place" is a non-description. What *exactly* are you seeing?

Are you in pre or post-fader metering mode?

Start at the input/beginning and work out if things are OK there... What does the recorded wet track show in pre-fader metering? Did it clip on recording or not?

Do you have a master fader track instantiated? What is the meter on that doing?

And all earlier questions.

Any terms you don't understand ask about, and/or search for in the Pro Tools reference guide.

I dont know what the clip indicator is.

I dont know how to reset the meter types.

I dont know what pre post fader metering mode is either i am a total poro tools noob i just hit record and record stuff.

it doesn;t clip when i reocrd it sounds fine on recording

When i say "it's clipping" i mean like its making a clicky crackly sound al over teh place. Every so ofte NOT every second, just every so often in the track.

and its realy unpleasant to hear. My guitars, for years have sounded really smootha nd nice to listen to...

As i just said, in REAPER just now, i tracked some gutiars to test with eleven rack and THERE WAS NOTHIG WRONG WITHT THE TRACK.

So it is an issue in pro tools, not with 11r.

What can we do?

[Darryl Ramm]

Clipping is practice means when a signal exceeds 0dbFS at an input or output. It's not clear you have any clipping going on, I suspect you probably don't. The usual sign of that is the little square red clipping light(s) coming on at the top of the Pro Tools track meters. And you would normally see the meters bouncing up near 0dbFS (but sometimes a fast transient spike can trip the clip meter faster than a meter will move).

When this noise happens does it happen at the exact same place/sound each time i.e. does it seem embedded in the track or is it happening during playback? If earlier can you zoom in on the track waveform and see the noise in the waveform?

Follow the directions under "help us help you" up the top of each DUC web page to trash prefs. You want to always start troubleshooting by trashing prefs.

Create a new totally empty test session with just two mono audio tracks (wet and dry), create a master fader track for the Main output. Don't use a session template. Do not add any other plugins. Try to see if that problem happens again. I'm checking here for a corrupted session or corrupted template, but also for any third party plugins that might be in demo mode or might have licensing problems... they sometimes inject periodic noise into a session while in demo mode.

In Setup>Playback Engine and make sure ignore errors is *not* checked. That can cause crackling noises when there is a CPU overload (instead of Pro Tools crashing).

Repeat what you were doing... do you get a AAE error from Pro Tools. Leave this unchecked (it really should never be used).

In Setup>Playback Engine set the HW buffer size to the largest value possible (what was it before?) and repeat what you were doing, you'll have awful latency when recording a track but I just want to see if the problem goes away.

Can you bounce out the sound and share that? Or even better share a test session that does this... zip it up and put on a file sharing site and post the link here.

[Darryl Ramm]

The meter stuff likely does not matter as I don't suspect you are clipping here. But just FYI

Originally Posted by Waff

I dont know what the clip indicator is.

little red square at the top of each meter.

I dont know how to reset the meter types.

Setup>Preferences>Metering and described in the Pro Tools reference guide.

I dont know what pre post fader metering mode is either i am a total poro tools noob i just hit record and record stuff.

This one gets new users all the time so worth playing with/understanding.

Options> Pre-Fader Metering.

Literally moves the track meter to show signal level before or after the fader. When tracking you want it before and when mixing you likely want it after. New users might burn themselves here say not being aware that an input track is clipping because they are looking post fader and the fader is set to pull the level down. The whole track signal flow is important to understand, where inputs, disk playback, fader, meters, plugins are in the flow. And Pro Tools is very nice in how it emulates a traditional large format recording console. There is a whole section in the reference guide "Signal Flow by Track Type" on that. Maybe the most useful part of the whole guide. And no nobody just reads that massive guide, but searching the PDF for help is fantastic. The PDF is already on your PC under Pro Tools Help.

it doesn;t clip when i reocrd it sounds fine on recording

BTW this might be an useful clue. Esp. if you have plugins in the session and are using low latency monitoring (LLM) (Options>Low latency Monitoring). Disables plugins on all signal paths being fed by active inputs while recording but reenables it when you play back, so if a plugin is causing this noise you may not hear that while tracking. Uncheck LLM if it was checked and see if the problem happens while tracking as well. Even if you are not using plugins when you use LLM and are monitoring your recording it is bypassing the DAW for that wet signal.

But also creating a very simple test session with absolutely no plugins at all in it is also worth doing.

[Waff]

https://youtu.be/UmlGRz68SpQ

thye clipping is harder to hear after bouncing and listening in a movie maker or VLC. The clipping, is still present, but easier t miss and is not as strong in the recording as it is in Pro Tools.

Could this be another hint> In pro tools, some of the clicking noises are much louder, but after bouncing it, it is harder to ear.

edit: actually no, it's about the same its hard to ell maybe i am just going CRAZY.

What if i downgraded to pro tools 10? Would that fchange anything? I'm gonna try and see if that works.