Meters but no sound suddenly

[ozzlvlosis]

Hey gang. Sorry about the noob question but all of a sudden I have no sound. I see meters moving in Pro tools AND in the fireface totalmix software.

I recorded an audio file. It has no sound in pro tools but if I bounce it and play it I can hear it. I can play audio files outside of pro tools just fine so it must be some sort of configuration that changed within pro tools

However the I/O all looks right and I even hit the default button just incase. Still no sound

Any suggestions?

[albee1952]

Hmm, maybe open your IO setup and look for problems there. Things to look for:
1-duplicate output paths
2-buses feeding outputs(specifically relating to your usual main outputs)
3-if you never customized the IO, you could try deleting output paths and then hitting the DEFAULT button.
4-double-check the "silly" stuff, like, are your speakers on? Are they still connected correctly? Do your headphones playback?
5-Did you recently change ANYTHING?(move the rig to a new room, install any new software, update anything....)

[Darryl Ramm]

If the output meters are moving in Totalmix I'd assume that the problem is not in Pro Tools... but check the meter moving is what you have your monitors connected to... and you don't have the output muted or a bad route in Totalmix with the signal going nowhere. Can you clobber/reset Totalmix (have not used that in ages and can't remember anything about it).

Can you reproduce this with a dead simple one track session? maybe screenshots here of your PT IO setup output page, PT mixer window, and Totalmix window

[The Weed]

In Pro Tools make sure your mix is going to Analog 1/2 through a Stereo Master Track.

In TotalMix, make sure the signal from Pro Tools from Software Playback 1/2 is being sent to your speakers, which should be to Hardware Output 1/2.

[Darryl Ramm]

I'm not sure how familiar you are with totalmix, but I'm going to assume it's relatively new to you.... some general advice I have for all these sophisticated hardware based mixers/monitoring systems is to put aside the DAW for a while and play around just with the mixer. If possible start with stand-alone e.g. how to get an analog input out to headphones with no DAW present, then add in some DAW IO. Play around with all the features in the mixer until you understand it/what is is doing. RME has some good looking Totalmix video tutorials on YouTube you could follow through to help with learning this. Most of us only probably need to only use a small fraction of what these mixers can do but the problem can be the other large fraction of the features/capabilities we don't use much/know well bite us in the ass.

(I love RME stuff thinking of adding some RME boxes here).

[ozzlvlosis]

Here are the screens

[ozzlvlosis]

I'm def not as familiar as I should be however everything was working fine last time my computer was on. Not getting sound through pro tools all of a sudden. I can click on any audio outside the program and it plays fine. Even showing meters in pro tools and totalmix
Just no sound

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by ozzlvlosis

I'm def not as familiar as I should be however everything was working fine last time my computer was on. Not getting sound through pro tools all of a sudden. I can click on any audio outside the program and it plays fine. Even showing meters in pro tools and totalmix
Just no sound

We've describe what to look at and you are back telling us the same stuff over again. It does not matter that it was working, it's no longer working and the most likely explanation is you changed something without realizing it. We don't know that for sure, we can't guess either way but that is where I would start. All you need to debug is staring you in the face, start by carefully following signal paths.

And again if you are seeing output meters move in TotalMix driven by Pro Tools then you *are* getting sound, or at least a signal out of Pro Tools. And so it's likely not a Pro Tools problem (or the problem could be you are driving the wrong DAW IO into total mix). What audio if any is going into ProMix and where is it going from there and why is it not getting out to your monitors. And it doesn't matter what other apps do, they may well be feeding different inputs from the computer into TotalMix and be routed different ways, or for all we know you might be bypassing Totalmix with those other apps.

Those screenshots are pretty hard to look at. How about taking actual screenshots from the computer not trying to photograph the screen, and try to get the whole totalmix window if you can. You may need to scale the size of those images to attach here. It looks like you are driving the right outputs. But nobody here can make out the signal path in Totalmix from that photo.

[ozzlvlosis]

Screenshots

[Darryl Ramm]

Thanks for the much better pictures.

Clearly you have a signals going through Totalmix getting as far as the logical output, but apparently not out of the physical IO.

I can't recall the Totalmix UI that well and I can't tell for sure what is illuminated in the slightly dark screenshot but it looks to me like the global mute and solo buttons are lit up. Are they? What happens if you toggle both those buttons.

And the software outputs (from DAW seem to be routed to PH 7/8... are you listening on headphones? or monitors?)

It also looks like the Output Cue button(s) may be illuminated. What do you have configured as Cue outputs? ie. under the "Assign" button in the control room section (lower right faders).

I hope folks who actually know how to use TotalMix weigh in.

There are so many settings that affect stuff in Totalmix that resetting all defaults may be a good idea, I can't recall how to do that but you'll find online with a search.