I/O setup help - I SHOULD ALREADY KNOW THIS!

[swethington]

Hey everybody, I'm almost ashamed to ask this question because I feel like I should know the answer, but I don't, so here were are!....I've been using Pro Tools as a semi-professional since the late 90s or so, but I've never really fully understood how/why things change in I/O setup from session to session. So here's my dumb question...

When I start a new session- let's say I'm tracking a band - I make a new session, name the session, set the disk location to what I want, make sure the sample rate and bit depth is right and hit 'Create'. I always leave I/O settings on "last used"..mostly because all the other options in the dropdown menu aren't things that mean anything to me. **I'm guessing this is where my problem is but read on...**

So I'll setup tracks and then I'll start routing them. For example, I want to route two overhead mics to a stereo aux input (or folder) called 'overheads.' So I'll select both overhead tracks, shift+option click on the output for one of those tracks and select "new track." I route them to a new stereo aux called "overheads" and those tracks get routed there as expected...this is a great feature of pro tools and I use it all the time... BUT!

But sometimes the output of those two tracks and the input of the aux will be automatically renamed as "overheads.1" or (god forbid) "overheads.2" rather than just "overheads". Why is this happening? How can I prevent it?

I realize this is a very OCD thing...the audio is being routed to where I want it, but as someone who likes to keep the visual aspect of my DAW as clean/simple as possible those ".1" or ".2" things drive me crazy. I'm sure there is a simple way to change this that I just haven't been able to wrap my head around, so hopefully one of you fine people can help! What is the simple fix to this that I'm missing?

thanks!!