No Sound from Instrument tracks when record enabled

[Jayster1]

All instrument tracks play, but once you stop playback and then record enable an instrument track, you can play the sound for a few seconds, then all the sounds cut out, on all the instrument tracks. Audio tracks can still be heard. This is happening now even with songs I have recorded a year ago. Midi messages are being recorded, but no sounds. Restart Pro Tools, start playback, you can hear the sounds. Record enabled the same instrument track (any of the instrument tracks) and again no sounds. What can make this happen. I have unplugged all USB's, all midi cables and tried using one midi cable from the controller keyboard to the interface, same issue.

This is my Setup:
Computer Desk; Omen 30L
AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-Core Processor 3.59 GHz
RAM 32.0 GB
Windows 10
Personus Studio 24c Interface
Pro Tools 2021.7.0

[Darryl Ramm]

Hi Welcome to DUC.

That's a great clear description of what is happening, and hopefully will avoid everybody telling you you need to record enable the instrument track etc.

I am pretty sure this type of problem has been mentioned by others in the past, you might be able to find past posts on DUC, search with Google and use the "site: duc.avid.com" or "site: avid.com" qualifiers (without quotes). It's never happened to me.

I can't recall or quickly find the best old threads on this but first thing is does all audio stop playing or is it only VIs? If it's all audio then try changing the I/O Buffer size to something else, there are a class of problems esp. on Windows where doing that can sometimes make Pro Tools audio get going again, but that won't be the issue here if regular audio tracks keeps playing OK when the VIs stop playing.

What happens to the audio meters on the instrument tracks when you stop hearing the audio from them?

But first make really really sure it's not a user mistake. For example you are not routing say all VIs to an aux and have unintended automation on the aux track or a master fader or some way that only the VIs will get clobbered. Accidental automation can be really insidious. Can get copied/imported into other sessions etc. so make sure.

Standard troubleshooting stuff:

Have a read of "help us help you" up the top of each DUC web page.

Does this happen on all sessions? Sessions derived from each other? Try starting with an empty new session (not from a template) and see if it happens there.

Make sure you try trashing prefs. Always start troubleshooting by trashing prefs.

If that does not help then try moving *all* plugin files (not just VIs) from the plugin folder to the Unused folder, trash prefs again and restart Pro Tools, it will automagically put back it's default plugins, and you can move back the Mini Grand VI and nothing more, and see if the problem happens again. Any plugin can potentially do bizzare damage to Pro Tools just by being loaded at startup, it does not even need to be instantiated on a track, so get rid of them all as a quick test to see if the problem is possibly plugin related.

Create a new Admin account and try testing from there, repeating stuff, like trashing prefs, testing with a new empty session etc.

[Stephen Bond]

I take it this is nothing to do with the random MIDI output not being routed to the inserted VI on an instrument track on opening a Session?

Probably worth double checking that the MIDI is going to the appropriate instrument and not into the ether!

You can see it on the channel view at the top when this view option is selected.

Stephen

[Jayster1]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Hi Welcome to DUC.

That's a great clear description of what is happening, and hopefully will avoid everybody telling you you need to record enable the instrument track etc.

I am pretty sure this type of problem has been mentioned by others in the past, you might be able to find past posts on DUC, search with Google and use the "site: duc.avid.com" or "site: avid.com" qualifiers (without quotes). It's never happened to me.

I can't recall or quickly find the best old threads on this but first thing is does all audio stop playing or is it only VIs? If it's all audio then try changing the I/O Buffer size to something else, there are a class of problems esp. on Windows where doing that can sometimes make Pro Tools audio get going again, but that won't be the issue here if regular audio tracks keeps playing OK when the VIs stop playing.

What happens to the audio meters on the instrument tracks when you stop hearing the audio from them?

But first make really really sure it's not a user mistake. For example you are not routing say all VIs to an aux and have unintended automation on the aux track or a master fader or some way that only the VIs will get clobbered. Accidental automation can be really insidious. Can get copied/imported into other sessions etc. so make sure.

Standard troubleshooting stuff:

Have a read of "help us help you" up the top of each DUC web page.

Does this happen on all sessions? Sessions derived from each other? Try starting with an empty new session (not from a template) and see if it happens there.

Make sure you try trashing prefs. Always start troubleshooting by trashing prefs.

If that does not help then try moving *all* plugin files (not just VIs) from the plugin folder to the Unused folder, trash prefs again and restart Pro Tools, it will automagically put back it's default plugins, and you can move back the Mini Grand VI and nothing more, and see if the problem happens again. Any plugin can potentially do bizzare damage to Pro Tools just by being loaded at startup, it does not even need to be instantiated on a track, so get rid of them all as a quick test to see if the problem is possibly plugin related.

Create a new Admin account and try testing from there, repeating stuff, like trashing prefs, testing with a new empty session etc.

[Jayster1]

All the audio tracks will still play, only the VI tracks stop playing back audio. The channel meter at the top show's midi data coming through when you're playing the keyboard, but no data or audio is showing on the bottom audio meter, while playing the keyboard or playing back the song, once you have tried record enabled. Again, you can start the song from the beginning or anywhere else on track (for the first time), but once you record enable a VI track, you can trigger the sound by keyboard and see the audio meter moving, and top meter moving also. But, after a few seconds, the sound (audio) cuts out. Then, if you can start the song from the beginning, you won't hear the VI tracks, just the audio tracks. This happens on all my sessions, even those from a few years back. I have Trash Reference and use a blank template building a new song, the issue remains the same.

[Flyingrockstudios]

I am seeing this same problem after I get an error message pop up that the audio engine couldn’t process a plug in(not necessarily the VI plug in). I can make it happen if I start changing something on a VI plug in like loading a different instrument while the track is playing. Then only the first few notes will playback on an existing track, and I can only play the VI for a first note or two. I am not in record mode and buffer size is 256 or higher. If I deactivate the VI plug in, then reactivate it, all is well again. I think PT is having a hard time recovering from something.

I am using a Mac Trash can, OS Mojave and PT 2022.4 Ultimate/HDX.

[albee1952]

I wish when people would have this kind of issue that they would say what VI plugin The reason being that some are very resource-hungry(like KeyScape, for example). In cases like that, I will insert a less "hungry" VI, like MiniGrand for tracking and editing. Once the performance is good, then I swap to the "hungry" VI and commit the track