User Manual

Chapter 21: Record Setup 445
Setting Monitor Levels for
Record and Playback
Pro Tools remembers two different fader levels
for monitoring each audio track: one for when
the track is record-enabled, and one for when it
is not record-enabled.
Pro Tools keeps track of these two states for
fader levels automatically. If you adjust a fader
when a track is record-enabled and then turn off
record enable for the track, the fader returns to
its playback level.
When audio tracks are record-enabled, their vol-
ume faders in the Mix window turn red, indicat-
ing that the record monitor level is active.
Link Record and Play Faders
When the Link Record and Play Faders option is
selected in the Operation Preferences, Pro Tools
does not keep track of record and play levels for
audio tracks. In this case, record enabling an au-
dio track has no effect on the fader level for the
track. This lets you maintain a consistent mix re-
gardless of whether you are recording or just lis-
tening.
Reducing Monitoring Latency
There will inevitably be some audio delay, or la-
tency, in the monitoring signal (even if only a
few samples) due to the process of converting an
analog signal to a digital signal (input) and back
again (output). There may be additional latency
due to mixer configurations and processing.
Pro Tools|HD systems have additional latency
when using RTAS plug-ins because these plug-
ins also use your computer’s host processor.
Host-based Pro Tools systems use the host pro-
cessor in your computer for all audio processing,
playback, and recording, so there is always a
small amount of latency in the system. For ex-
ample, there may be some audible delay be-
tween the incoming signal and outgoing signal
when monitoring recording through Pro Tools.
With Pro Tools, latency occurs as follows:
• All Pro Tools systems can have RTAS MIDI-
to-audio latency (such as when playing an
RTAS virtual instrument live and monitor-
ing the instrument’s output).
• Pro Tools systems have input-to-output
monitoring latency on any record-armed
tracks or Auxiliary Inputs with live inputs.
• Pro Tools|HD systems have monitoring la-
tency on tracks that have one or more RTAS
plug-ins.