How to connect anything to control pro tools?

[Area57]

So far I am just having random luck installing any controllers for pro tools. This is how it is supposed to work right? I hook up some sort of controller, or instrument to record and select instrument track and it records it?

I have the official textbook, pro tools 101 and nothing in it makes mine work, nothing I have found online. I'm sorry I'm frustrated, it has just been about five days and i only had it working for one of those days. I just want to play around a bit and get a feel for recording tracks with virtual instruments but I've spent probably 10 hours trying to get this and it's probably the easiest thing I am overlooking.

Could it be I have an audio interface with a mic connecting to the firewire port and my midi controller through the usb and i have to switch between the two and right now it is trying to use the audio interface?

I just don't understand it at all. Even though I have an audio interface with headphones, and previously pro tools was playing audio through it and my headphones, now it decided to play through my tiny laptop speaker and i have no idea how to fix it. that would help, to learn why sometimes it played through my audio interface and sometime my laptop speakers.

Something is wrong with mine, I'm trying to use boom and nothing happens. it does sometimes say pro tools cannot communicate with HUI

Please help, I'm really frustrated. Is there anyone to call to ask questions?

[soybalm]

I would try going into the Setup menu and select Playback Engine. Your device driver should be there. If you are on a pc using Asio4all, you have to use the Asio4all control panel, select advance in the ASIO4All panel and turn on the headphone output or audio interface, and turnoff the speaker output . If it's a midi keyboard controller, you should be able to record midi notes. I think the note C3 is where the Boom patterns start. so make sure you are playing that range. C1 is where the individual drum hits start.

[Area57]

ok, after fiddling, I removed the hui and now it works. Why?

[Wizzoboy]

The HUI protocol is used with fader control surfaces such as Mackie Control Universal or Behringer BCF 2000. Keyboard controllers are either plug and play or have their own driver software.

[CygnusX-1Bk2]

What OS? What controller? What interface? There are quite a few parameters here and devices need to be setup according to what they do. There is not enough information to determine what's going on.

[Park Seward]

You might want to start with the Pro Tools Reference Guide, Page 35. A lot of questions can be answered there.

After reading about PT, you can then post direct questions that can be answered here.

Also, take a look here: http://duc.avid.com/forumdisplay.php?f=112

Good "Getting Started" info.