I/O not showing Blue Yeti

[TDron]

Hello,
I am brand new to anything audio, I've been trying to get myself set-up and I'm finding it a step learning curve. I had my first fail with an out of date interface and have now made a second attempt with Pro Tools using a Blue Yeti.

I hope the following is going to make sense- lots of new terminology for me!

I have watched several videos-on how to set up the BY, or any usb mic, and followed them up to the stage of recoding.

My Mac recognises the Blue Yeti and allows me to set it up as an aggregate in MIDI Setup. I have also tried creating a new aggregate and set that up with the BY as the input.

When I try to record no I/O is showing as detected. I have tried changing the Playback Engine to the one I created. I have also tried the Protools default Playback engine- but when I open up the detail on the inputs it doesn't show the same options that I have set-up in Audio MIDI setup, as if it has defaulted back.

I have tried using the mic with other software and that picked the mic up straight away so I know it is working.

Is it that, for a second time I have bought tech no longer compatible with Pro Tools?

[junkgear]

It sounds like you are on the right track to getting this to work.
You will definitely want to choose the aggregate IO that you set up on your system as the Playback Engine. Once that is done, open the I/O settings in ProTools and go to the Input tab. Press the Default button, which will reset the IO settings and put defaults for your device in the grid. Check to make sure that you see your Mic in the list and that it shows at least one active input. Close the I/O setup and open a new session.

Add an audio track to the session. Now you should be able to click on the Input selection and choose your mic input. Once chosen, record enable the track and you should be able to record into Pro Tools.

If it still doesn't work for you, post screenshots of your I/O setup in Pro Tools.

[TDron]

Thank you so much.

I've tried this- the default didn't seem to change in the one I've called Blue Yeti- which is what I have selected for these screen shots.

I don't know if I am missing something really basic- and hoping the screenshots help

[junkgear]

It does look like it is seeing the device in the I/O setup just fine.

I can't really see much in the session screenshot. I would add a stereo track to your session. If there is a track in your screenshot, the height is really small, so if your new stereo track is that small, simply resize it by dragging the lower edge of the track down so you can see all of the parameters available to the track. You should then see your record enable and other buttons.

[Darryl Ramm]

So what is the problem? The screenshots provided don't show any.

So the Blue Yeti is showing up as inputs exactly as expected as shown on the Setup> IO > Input page. What about outputs? You need to default the Setup > IO > Bus *and* Outputs page if things don't look correct for outputs.

Then what is the empty edit window screen shot supposed to tell us? [edit: Will is right, I missed it, you need to expand down that track so you can see the I/O selector buttons]

Select the track inputs and outputs in those IO selector buttons if they are not. If this is unclear you should find a getting started tutorial on YouTube, or maybe trial Groove3 commercial lessons.

---

You should be able to get this to work, but I would not recommended a USB microphone and using aggregate IO with Pro Tools or really any DAW. Aggregation can cause problems especially at small H/W buffer sizes and the setup is just not as flexible as using a small interface with analog inputs and outputs. You could ask here for advice before buying stuff.

[Darryl Ramm]

..and...

The Blue Yeti has headphone outputs, I would normally include those in the aggregate. And plug headphones to monitor recording into the Yeti, that way you can also use the low latency monitoring in the Yeti if you want to, but it also avoids some stupid behavior with the Mac with appearing and dissapearing headphones interface when you plug in headphones to the Mac. (assuming this is a Mac from the last few years--please include those kind of details of the computer in posts here).

If your headphones are plugged into the Blue Yeti now you won't hear anything from Pro Tools since you have not included those outputs in the aggregate.

I am guessing the Yeti is in front of you and you are operating the Mac while recording a one person podcast or similar? Tracks you are recording need an output, as you are setup now that will be the Mac's speakers, and you'll have to pull those levels down really low or mute the track to avoid feedback through the Mic.

With the Mac's speakers in the aggregate if you plug headphones into the Mac all that will do on a modern Mac is create a new headphone device in Audio MIDI Setup, and that won't be in your aggregate. It's very annoying/stupid behavior from Apple. To just get started remove the Mac speakers from the aggregate and add the Blue Yeti headphone outputs and plug some headphones into the Yeti.

You can add back the speakers in the aggregate and use them at Mix/playback time once you get the basics going here.

Also on recent macOS like Sonoma, make sure that Pro Tools has Microphone privileges granted to it in System Settings > Privacy & Security otherwise you will never hear anything coming into Pro Tools from any audio input (not just the Mac's microphone).

You should see an annoying orange mic icon in the macOS menu bar at the top of the screen when Pro Tools has an active input, click on that icon and make sure "Voice Isolation" is *not* selected, at least to start with. Another silly annoyance on recent macOS.

[TDron]

Thank you both for the help and suggestions. @junkgear- adding the track did it. I don't know how I was doing it wrong before when I added a track but it's now working exactly as I was expecting from the tutorials I had watched.Thank you!

Apologies for the delay in thanking you- I've been away for a time.

Let the real learning commence!