Metronome

[SeventhSeal]

I just purchased an mbox with pro tools LE. How do I get the damn metronome to work, I've tried and tried to activate it through the software, hoping that it would play through headphones I've plugged into the front side of the mbox while I recorded tracks.

Help.
-SS

[Slim Shady]

Did you put the click plug-in on a mono aux track?

[SeventhSeal]

I'm not sure exactly what you mean. I've been trying to activate it while playing or recording on a mono audio track. In the Click/countoff preferences, for "output" there is only "none"......could this be a factor???

[Slim Shady]

To use the built-in click, you need to create a mono aux track, then insert the 'click' plug-in on that track (and make sure the fader is up on that track). You can then enable or disable the click using the transport window's metronome icon (or the number 7 on your numeric keypad). The click plug-in has a few presets for different sounds if you don't like the default.

In the Click/countoff preferences, for "output" there is only "none"......could this be a factor???

That is only referring to a MIDI click - since your only option is 'none', I'm guessing you don't have a MIDI keyboard hooked up to your rig. In PT you have 2 options for clicks, either the built-in click plug-in, or you can trigger an external MIDI device to make the click sound instead.

Actually, there's a third option, which is much more complicated, but is actually what I usually do, and that is to record a transient sound (like a handclap or a sidestick or a percussion sample) into a mono audio track, then edit and duplicate that sound for the entire track using the grid mode. The reason I do this is that I move my sessions around to different studios, and you never know what plug-ins, MIDI gear, or version of PT they're going to have, so having the click as actual audio saves a lot of time. If you're a beginner though, I just stick with using the click plug-in for now, if you ever reach it's limitations, then look at the other options.

Slim