Troubleshooting Pro Tools I/O Settings
As we have said before, it is best to understand how Pro Tools uses I/O Settings so that you can work with it, rather than fighting against it and if you do need to visit I/O Setup to troubleshoot a problem, in this article, we offer some tips to help you work out what has gone wrong.
How Pro Tools Uses I/O Settings
In the New Session window, there is an option to select which I/O Setting you want to use when creating new sessions. It defaults to ‘Last Used’, unless you’ve selected a custom I/O the last time you created a session. “Last Used” will use whatever exists in the I/O Setup at the moment the session is created.
TIP: If you are working alone on your own system then leaving this as Last Used should be OK, but, if you are taking in sessions from other systems, we strongly recommend that you never use “Last Used”. Instead, use one of the backups you created earlier to make sure that the new session has your system’s input and outputs settings.
Once your session is created, you may find yourself adding new busses, or customising existing busses. If you use Last Used then the next time you create a session, that new session will inherit these changes.
If you’ve received and opened a session from someone else, Last Used is almost certainly not the correct choice when creating a new session. You may find that you want your custom set of busses, which is why it’s good to export a custom I/O Setting directly after creating it.
Custom I/O’s, like the backups you created earlier, can be accessed from the I/O Setting list when creating a new session. This way you can get back to your default every time.
TIP: If a custom I/O setting is chosen, it will be remembered and chosen the next time you create another session.
Opening Sessions
When Pro Tools opens a session, it will automatically remove the existing busses from the last session you had open and bring in the busses that relate to the new session confirming the fluid nature of session related I/O settings. This all helps to try and keep the bus list clean.
With the two types of buses in Pro Tools, internal buses like subgroups and aux sends as well as buses that get mapped to outputs, any busses that were mapped to hardware outputs on another system, will attempt to map to hardware on the current system.
When you open a session, the monitor path should always map successfully. Other busses will try to find a match, but if they can’t, Pro Tools will tell you which busses can’t map to which outputs. If Pro Tools is unable to map all the outputs then before the session opens, you will get a notification window that lists all the output paths that could not be mapped, with a Session Notes window.
TIP: It is so easy just to dismiss this window and fix the problems later. However, what you may have missed in your haste to dismiss this window, is the Open I/O Setup button in the bottom left-hand corner of the Session Notes window. Clicking on this button takes you to the I/O Setup window before the session has completed opening and so resolve any problems.
Troubleshooting in the I/O Setup Window
If you do need to visit I/O Setup to troubleshoot a problem, here are some tips to hopefully help you work out what has gone wrong.
Bus Mappings - Buses that are mapped to outputs can show you if their hardware assignment has changed since the last time the session was saved.
If the monitor path bus, the one with the little speaker icon has been automatically mapped to a new output, it will show in green.
A new column will also appear, called “Previous Output Mapping”. This will show you the output that the bus was last mapped to.
Because you can see which output it was mapped to, if you need to, you can go to the Output tab in the I/O Setup window and click “Show Last Saved Setup” to help better understand the last saved hardware configuration, all without screwing with the session. (see below for more on “Show Last Saved Setup”)
If the bus can’t find an appropriate output to map to, it will show the previously mapped bus in italics, along with “(path n/a)”. Again you can see what it was mapped to on the other system and so that will help you to work out what you need to map it to on your system.
Hopefully, you can see the benefit of using template sessions and/or making sure all the outputs have the same names because if you do they will map automatically and you won’t need to troubleshoot so much.
Hardware Tabs (Inputs, Outputs, Inserts, and Mic Pre) - The Show Last Saved Setup button has been in I/O Setup for a long time, but this too has been improved over the years. It will light up if anything has changed in I/O Setup from the last time the session was saved. But note this isn’t necessarily the same thing as the last time the I/O Setup was closed by clicking on the OK button.
Show Last Saved Setup is especially helpful when trying to understand the hardware configuration that the session was previously saved on, but it can also be used to compare any small changes that you’ve made since you last saved the session.
Both the Input and Output tabs of the I/O Setup window have the Show Last Saved Setup button. When the last saved I/O setup is shown, the button is highlighted. Once you save the session, the Show Last Saved Setup button is greyed out.
When showing the I/O Setup last saved with the session, any unavailable hardware Inputs or Outputs are displayed in italics.
Additionally, when showing the I/O Setup last saved with the session, the Monitor Path, Audition Path, Output Meter Path, and AFL/PFL Path settings that were saved with the session are shown greyed out. To show the last saved I/O settings:
Open the I/O Setup (Setup > I/O).
Click either the Input or Output tab.
Click the Show Last Saved Setup button (the button highlights).
You can restore the I/O settings saved with the session and overwrite the system settings
When viewing the I/O Setup last saved with the session, the OK option is not available for saving and closing I/O Setup.
To show the current I/O settings:
If not already open, open the I/O Setup (Setup >I/O).
Click either the Input or Output tab.
Click the highlighted Show Last Saved Setup button (the button becomes unhighlighted).
Restore Settings From Session - Note that you can recall the I/O settings saved with the session or project and overwrite the system settings. To do this use the Restore from Session button but be aware that this will only affect the currently viewed page in I/O Setup. For example, if you are viewing the Output page, only the Output settings are overwritten by the settings saved with the session, unless you check the Apply To All Tabs option.
To restore I/O settings from the session:
Open the I/O Setup (which you will find in the Setup menu).
Select the tab for the page that you want to restore from the session.
Click Restore from Session.
Enable the Apply to all tabs option or press Option (Mac) or Alt (Windows) while clicking Restore from Session to restore settings for all I/O Setup pages from the session.
Click OK to save your changes and close I/O Setup.
That said, we strongly recommend that you think very carefully before using the Restore from Session option as it will change everything.
TIP: We suggest that you are much better to remap the busses to the appropriate outputs than use this option as it is like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but if you are looking for the option to Session Overwrite that was available in Pro Tools 9 to 11, then this is it.
In Conclusion
As I said at the start of this series, what surprised me was that even I hadn’t completely clocked the detail of the workflow for using the I/O Setup window, it was only when I was researching for this article and ran some tests of my own to help me better understand what is going on, that I realised just how much it has changed over the years.
Also, because most of us don’t live in this part of Pro Tools when we need to use it, we are not sure what to do, further complicated by the fact that for some of us the workflow may have changed since we last used it!
The good news is the design of Pro Tools reduces the need to take a nervous look at the I/O Setup Window when things don’t work, especially when it comes to working on sessions that have come from a different studio or Pro Tools rig.
More often than not, with the Monitor Path remapping, we can get straight to work. However, if we have a lot of other outputs, some planning consistent naming and the use of templates can save us unexpected visits to the I/O Setup window.