Question about direct monitoring in Pro Tools 10

[Matt C.]

After some time searching around this morning I still couldn't find an answer to this, so here goes. sorry if this has been asked before. for the record I'm using a PC with a Lynx Aurora 16 and AES16 card. Until now i've been recording in Nuendo 3.

I'm wondering how Pro Tools 10 (non HD) handles ASIO controlled direct monitoring, or zero latency hardware monitoring or whatever you want to call it. Basically when I'm recording in PT I don't want to monitor through the program itself and have to worry about the latency that comes along with that, but I want the direct monitoring to be controlled completely from within PT. I don't want to have to open the Lynx mixer window and use it to set up the monitoring scheme separately from PT. is this possible?

After using Nuendo for years I assumed this was standard in all DAWs, but then when I was looking at Reaper I realized it doesn't have this feature. I searched online a bunch and looked through the PT manual a bit but since I'm still not very familiar with the intricacies of DAW based recording I couldn't quite sort it all out in my head.

[Nick Sevilla]

Hi Matt,

Pro Tools 8 and above (non HD) has a check mark in the settings, under options, for low latency monitoring.

You need to keep two things in mind:

1.- You cannot monitor plugins (software) as this feature bypasses the processing.

2.- It will use the lowest possible buffer setting for your audio device, so,you still will have a little bit of latency, but acceptable.

Cheers

[chris harris]

That's not entirely accurate. PT 9 (non-HD) cannot do "Low Latency Monitoring" on non Digidesign/Avid interfaces. PT 10 (non-HD) can, but only on your first 2 output channels. So, if you're using multiple outputs and an analog console, you'll have to work around that. You needn't worry about your interface's cue mix application, as it's totally useless in PT since you cannot bypass input monitoring in PT. If you enable monitoring with your Lynx app, it will overlay the input monitoring signal coming from PT, and create all kinds of phasey weirdness.

I haven't upgraded to 10 yet, so I'm not sure if the low latency monitoring via only 2 output channels is something that I can integrate into my workflow or not. But, on PT9, I've had plenty of success running sessions with a buffer size of 64. Latency is unnoticeable and hasn't been an issue at all.

[Matt C.]

thanks, good to know. I'm amazed that this feature works so seamlessly in Nuendo and is so bogus in PT and Reaper. maybe I won't switch after all.

[Nick Sevilla]

Thanks Chris, good to know this feature is missing with non-Avid hardware.
I have a friend who is considering using PT with a Motu device... so I'll mention this to him next time we talk.

Cheers

[chris harris]

Yeah, I'm using PT9 with a MOTU 2408mk3 based system. It works fine at low buffer settings... but, if your friend wants seamless integration with his audio hardware, he's better off using DP. DP is a pretty strong DAW.

[greatmagnet]

Yep I'm a long-time DP user and have recently purchased PT10 thinking that with the new native version I'd finally run out of reasons not to get all industry standard and stuff.

Since then I've been having an impossible time trying to figure out what should be the simplest of things: monitoring inputs off of my RME mix matrix ONLY, while being able to send out multiple headphone feeds to the band in the other room, and actually being able to hear playback of my prerecorded tracks before punching in without monitoring "wet" and all that entails.

I've been trolling the forums (here, Avid, etc) for the last month as well as YouTube trying to figure all this out, assuming all the while that the problem must be me and something I was missing in the manual, since this seemed to me like such a rudimentary feature. It seems mind-boggling to me that any DAW that sells for $700 would not have figured out something so fundamental to recording.

Having now found numerous responses that mirror what I'm reading here, I am thinking that it really is true that it can't be done properly. Which to me is pretty infuriating: it means I spent all that money on something that...between that issue and the ridiculousness of it's included plugins and a few other laughably counter-intuitive setup issues or omissions I won't mention here...is little more than a quaint toy. And yet costs $100 MORE than DP.

It's bummer because there are so many things I think are amazing about PT: Beat Detective, tabbing functions, etc. Just seems amazing to me they are doing so many cool functions and yet totally missing out on some of the fundamentals.