Input Monitoring Seems to be Bypassing Everything

[UVMus]

Hi ya'll,

I'm in a very unique situation. I have been tasked with filling in for another professor at my school who abruptly left and am trying my best to get up to speed on a HUGE amount of things related to recording and mixing. Our studio has a lot of great things going for it and I am trying to rise to the occasion. Basically, I'm the equivalent of someone trying to learn to drive in a Ferrari.

I've hit a weird snag where PT won't let me use any of the M, I, or S buttons and I just get input monitoring from my mics no matter what. Things I've tried:
-Low Latency Monitoring
-Disabling Link Record and Play Faders

Even when I turn the fader completely off, I still am getting my microphone signal coming through the monitors. Hopefully, I'm doing something incredibly simple and dumb and you all can help me out.

[originalscottyg]

This sounds like it could be some zero-latency direct monitoring happening on the interface with a front panel knob that blends between hardware input and software monitoring, or inside the interface's control panel where direct monitoring might be setup. What interface is being used?

Also, it is usually helpful to include comprehensive information about the system in question: computer, operating system, pro tools version, interface, etc.

[UVMus]

It's a UA Apollo x16

Edit: was reading too fast and missed the last part. I'll be sure to include in the future.

Mac Pro (2019)
3.5 GHz 8-core intel xeon W
Big Sur 11.6
Protools 12.0 (I believe)

Originally Posted by originalscottyg

This sounds like it could be some zero-latency direct monitoring happening on the interface with a front panel knob that blends between hardware input and software monitoring, or inside the interface's control panel where direct monitoring might be setup. What interface is being used?

Also, it is usually helpful to include comprehensive information about the system in question: computer, operating system, pro tools version, interface, etc.

[Rich Breen]

Both things Scott said:
A) we need WAY more info: Computer, OS, Pro Tools version, Interface(s)
B) almost certainly direct monitoring in the interface's hardware/software

[Rich Breen]

Originally Posted by UVMus

It's a UA Apollo x16

No doubt you're direct monitoring through the UA Console. You're gonna need to study up on UA's software.

[UVMus]

YES! All I had to do in the end (after searching a similar UA forum) is mute the inputs in the interface console. I love you all already and I've been here about an hour.

Originally Posted by Rich Breen

No doubt you're direct monitoring through the UA Console. You're gonna need to study up on UA's software.

[originalscottyg]

Originally Posted by UVMus

YES! All I had to do in the end (after searching a similar UA forum) is mute the inputs in the interface console. I love you all already and I've been here about an hour.

Glad you got it sorted. The UA workflow with Pro Tools can be a bit complicated, as you have to manage routing in both places. I have no experience with UA interfaces and UA's console app, so I probably wouldn't have been much help there. But there are lot's of people here who use Apollos, so I'm sure there are others who could help in the future.

[Darryl Ramm]

Great you got this sorted out so fast.

Even if you don't have time to get into the UA console with your students. It would be fantastic if you could discuss facing this problem with your students. These kinds of things hit so many users even those who know Pro Tools well when first using a new interface that has advanced hardware monitoring. And beginners can get tripped up by the simple hardware monitoring with just a "monitoring" knob on the interface.

There seems to sometimes be a psychological trap when folks are having problems which is not totally unusual to see on DUC when folks are stuck. Their minds are naturally inside Pro Tools or some other DAW, they are staring at it's UI and especially if the are already a little lost then it's not natural to step away from the DAW and go look at the separate hardware mixer software/config UI, wether it's UAD Console, RME TotalMix, Focusrite Control, Apogee Maestro, etc. Sometimes folks struggling really just will not go look at that stuff, even if it's suggested they do. Letting your students know they should be willing to go look/explore the interface mixer control software may help them a lot. Ideally hopefully they will crack open the user manual for whatever system they have, spend time playing with and learning that if only to know for sure how to disable it. And if they want to learn how to do more/get their heads around this the thing I see work best is to start without the DAW running and work out say how to do a hardware monitoring mix to headphones and then bring in the DAW and DAW returns to the hardware mixer. Host loopback capabilities in the UA Console and Totalmix and some others might be worth just mentioning so students know it's possible with some interfaces (it allows you to loop back audio from the computer output into a DAW without requiring any other hardware, can be useful say for folks working on modern things like podcasts, live video performances etc.).

[its2loud]

Right, so basically signal flow.