Audio distorting when try to print a mix

[niltonsantin]

Hi guys.
It's been 2 days since I'm trying to print a mix in Pro Tools, I'm really getting crazy.
I route my signal chain correctly!
Every instruments has its own bus/aux, and all the vocals has its own bus/aux too.
So the general instruments bus/aux and vocal bus/aux has its output to an aux channel called "MIX", where I put my plugins and inserts for mix bus, and this aux has its output to my Stereo Output.
Everything's working until now.
But when I route my "MIX" bus to a bus called "PRINT", or even if I make it as a send to my print track (stereo track), when I try to record, it distorts my audio, so I can't use it!
And I have to print, bounce doesn't work for me because I have external hardware on my mix bus, so I got to figure out how to solve this!
I already tried to reset the I/O paths, I tried to open another session, I even tried to route all my tracks directly to my mixbus, then its output to my print track and it keeps distorting crazy.
The mix sounds amazing, but I can export it...

[Eric Lambert]

Originally Posted by niltonsantin

bounce doesn't work for me because I have external hardware on my mix bus

Out of curiosity, why does it matter that you have external hardware? Can't you still do an online (real time) bounce? I'm trying to understand how that's different than printing.

[K Roche]

Originally Posted by niltonsantin

Hi guys.
It's been 2 days since I'm trying to print a mix in Pro Tools, I'm really getting crazy.
I route my signal chain correctly!
Every instruments has its own bus/aux, and all the vocals has its own bus/aux too.
So the general instruments bus/aux and vocal bus/aux has its output to an aux channel called "MIX", where I put my plugins and inserts for mix bus, and this aux has its output to my Stereo Output.
Everything's working until now.
But when I route my "MIX" bus to a bus called "PRINT", or even if I make it as a send to my print track (stereo track), when I try to record, it distorts my audio, so I can't use it!
And I have to print, bounce doesn't work for me because I have external hardware on my mix bus, so I got to figure out how to solve this!
I already tried to reset the I/O paths, I tried to open another session, I even tried to route all my tracks directly to my mixbus, then its output to my print track and it keeps distorting crazy.
The mix sounds amazing, but I can export it...

If I am understanding how you are routing correctly . I do something pretty similar
Also I have a stereo hardware mix bus compressor on my main mix Aux track which I call (2 Mix ) which is a Hardware Insert on the 2 Mix track Which is routed to the main 1 &2 outs via a Master Fader
However I can bounce the mix just fine ?
It sounds like either a gain stage issue, a routing issue, or both.

[Eric Lambert]

Agreed, it seems like a routing issue. Something is being sent into a buss or aux more often than it should be, repeating itself. This is the most common reason for overmodulation/distortion in my experience. A feedback loop. Or something isn't set to 100% wet when it should be. It might be as silly as that. I'm still curious to know why a bounce wouldn't work -- maybe the process of printing is contributing to the issue.

[K Roche]

Originally Posted by Eric Lambert

Agreed, it seems like a routing issue. Something is being sent into a buss or aux more often than it should be, repeating itself. This is the most common reason for overmodulation/distortion in my experience. A feedback loop. Or something isn't set to 100% wet when it should be. It might be as silly as that. I'm still curious to know why a bounce wouldn't work -- maybe the process of printing is contributing to the issue.

The only thing I can think of that might affect a bounce could be if you are routing out of the DAW into hardware and then back into the DAW on a different input track ( as oppose to setting it up as a HW Insert) and not having that track feed the main outs Maybe ?
But I would have to play with that to know

As I noted I always just bounce from the Main outs 1-2 ---- I did a good while back experiment printing to an audio track but I don't remember if I also tried to export it. Perhaps later today I will play around with it and report back
But like you my guess would be the OP is somehow doubling up something on export

I would help if the OP could post a clear screen shot of his Mix window and his I/O input and output windows

This is my mix window = So on the dark purple M7 track (4th from right) my M7 HW reverb is an insert, and that tracks outputs go to the 2 Mix (main mix bus/aux ) which is the orange track 2nd from right (and then my mix buss HW compressor 3U is also setup on that track as an insert) and the track outputs go to my Main outs 1-2 (which I have labeled Stereo- Mon ) And as noted this setup bounces fine

[K Roche]

And another thought just occurred to me .
Because in Pro tools to use HW as inserts the physical In and Out connection have to be on the same channel numbers
BUT
Depending on which interface the OP is using (for which they have not provided any system info) some 3rd party interfaces routing matrix do no compensate for the Main Outputs (like Avid interfaces do) so the Outputs end up being offset 2 channel numbers to the Inputs which can trip folks up

[K Roche]

Ok just tried printing and the audio was not distorted and sounds the same as playing it in PT and or bouncing it ??

So I created a stereo audio track (Audio 1 ) and routed the 2 Mix track to it and recorded it
Then I right clicked that (Audio 1 ) track in the "clips playlist" and selected "Export Clips as Files" selected WAV and Interleaved and exported to my desk top then auditioned that WAV file and it played fine

Here you see 2 Mix routed to Audio 1 (blue arrow) then recording on Audio 1


Then highlighting the (Audio 1 track) selecting (Audio 1) from clips window > right click Export Clips as Files



Then exporting as interleaved WAV

[Eric Lambert]

Originally Posted by K Roche

The only thing I can think of that might affect a bounce could be if you are routing out of the DAW into hardware and then back into the DAW on a different input track ( as oppose to setting it up as a HW Insert) and not having that track feed the main outs Maybe ?
But I would have to play with that to know

I don't know if it's that exact scenario -- perhaps -- but the idea of unintentionally duplicating a signal is what stands out to me as a likely culprit. But in many cases that would still distort when printed instead of bounced. The print seems to be including audio that's not making it to the master fader on playback.

[K Roche]

Originally Posted by Eric Lambert

I don't know if it's that exact scenario -- perhaps -- but the idea of unintentionally duplicating a signal is what stands out to me as a likely culprit. But in many cases that would still distort when printed instead of bounced. The print seems to be including audio that's not making it to the master fader on playback.

Agreed
First I am wondering if we are dealing with an, English as second language issue ?

Because as you noted, the statement that bounce does not work because of HW on the mix bus (which is the same as my set up) where bounce works fine. So if bounce does not work on his system and even though he claims to be routed "correctly" I would guess it's a routing issue
And OP says playback in PT is fine BUT print distorting, which as you note strongly suggests he is not routed correctly and somehow doubling

Unfortunately with so little explanation of exact routing and method, no system details, no screen shots of I/O, and mixer, it's pretty hard to make much of an informed guess.

But apparently it's not really all that important to OP.

[niltonsantin]

Guys, sorry for the late reply!

I was talking with Avid Support and they suggested to hold Shift while I open the PT session file (it makes inactivate all the plugins in a session).

So as I said, the routes and signal chain was correct!

Then I started to activate one by one, and everything was fine, I was able to print a mix correctly, the audio was 100% correct.

But if I close the Pro Tools App and I open it again, the problem gets back. I will tell you, this is really frustrating!

All my plugins are original, and as I start to activate each plugin separately, I don't have any issue, but as I said, if I close Pro Tools and open it again, I have the same issue again