boynigel

All good info here. i probably could have worded things better as many of the points you guys made, i was already aware of, but big thanks to @rd2rk for putting the focusrite stuff back on my radar. I did a dive into it this morning and ordered myself a Scarlett 8i6 3G as it has all the connectivity i need, given that i track one instrument at a time being a one-man show, and it was only $299 delivered. I've also decided to get Helix Native for 99 bucks. In the long haul that'll make things easier as i won't have to bother routing cables for recording, re-amping or whatever, it'll free up a port on my computer, allow me to keep the Helix hooked up to my live rig...basically it'll keep me in the box, and my helix on the floor. @codamedia yes, i have used spidf before with my old Mbox 2 Pro firewire interface. It worked well/reliably with that setup. the only hiccups were user error in the event that my preamp's sample rate knob wasn't set to that of the session. idunno...i think $400 for an AI that does everything i need and Helix Native will be money (on the cheap) well spent. And maybe i'll get lucky and the Focusrite Air preamps will make it less likely that i even desire to hook up my external spidf pre? We shall see. thanks again all.

yes, but it's my understanding that I could patch a mic pre to one of the LT's returns. less than desirable but do-able...unless it sounds gross that way. Good point, and I'll give you my reasoning to correct if I'm wrong. I had a TERRIBLE experience with a USB AI interface years ago. Terrible latency/performance. Returned it. Totally turned me off to USB. Changed to, and stayed w/firewire until my recent upgrade to a new machine. to be fair, this was around 2007-ish. My new Mac Studio has all of its USB ports spoken for and I'm wary to bringing a hub into the mix (were I to go with a USB AI), my fear being that it will hurt performance...but maybe USB is night and day better now than it was 15 years ago. That said, my Mac Studio has 4 unused thunderbolt ports but all the AI's that use that are kinda breaking the bank for me...at least for now, on the heels of recently purchasing the new Mac and other essentials. I'm guessing there are likely USB 2.0 to Thunderbolt adapters, but I'm paranoid about those from another (poor performance) experience. You're probably going to remind me that the Helix is a USB interface. yep, but it performs w/no latency that I can detect...and I don't know if this is due to USB advancements as a whole, or something unique to how the Helix utilizes USB, allowing it to perform better than other USB devices?

It's all working perfectly now, thanks!

I purchased my LT long before I ever thought I’d be using it as a DAW interface. Now that I am, I’m considering upgrading to the flagship helix for the SPIDF connectivity. My thinking being that I’d be able to circumvent the (probably not the greatest) mic “preamp” of the Helix since I have a good mic pre that has SPIDF out. This, unless I’m missing something, would allow me to go out of my mic pre’s via SPIDF, sans-conversion, into the helix, sans Helix pre’s, straight thru to my DAW. I just want to make sure my logic isn’t flawed here, and if anyone has been getting great results using a LDC condenser into their LT, I’d love to hear about it. Maybe I’m not giving the LT’s capabilities enough credit in regard to using it to process an LDC coming into it…or maybe my suspicions are warranted? Of course I can just try the mics w/my LT but I won’t have access to them for another week so I figured I’d see if I could find out anything here in the meantime.

I've no idea where to find them despite multiple system searches. I found one tutorial here but it's from 2012 so I don't feel too good about using that one. FWIW I've been having troubles w/pro tools telling me it can't open my old 44.1 kHz sessions. at first I thought that was something I was doing wrong, but it wasn't. wasn't aware that I had to install helix drivers first so at that point I installed them (the newest M1 version for my Mac). I got a message giving me further instruction but closed it in error so I re-installed again in hopes of seeing the message, but it didn't appear. so I tried again. so now I've installed the drivers 3X. not sure if subsequent installs simply overwrite existing ones, or if I have 3 individual installations. if I do, I'd like to get rid of them and start from scratch in the event that if I DO have multiple installs, it could affect how well it runs.

disregard question. for some reason I thought there wasn't a 44.1 kHz setting on the helix, and that it started at 48 kHz. gotta stop w/the edibles when I do this stuff ;)

Using an LT as my pro tools interface. when I try to open older sessions that were recorded at 44.1 kHz, I get a message saying, "The current playback engine does not support a sample rate of 44.1 kHz." Anyone know any "tricks" to make it happen?

it should, and it did work! plug and play. went usb route after all because the Arturia didn't come w/its own power supply (!!!) so I dug out an old USB hub and plugged it into my Mac keyboard to gain an extra port. I'm superstitious and didn't want to tempt fate by plugging the old hub directly into the Mac. I thought maybe there'd be a chance of it performing poorly since I was putting it through the keyboard, but it doesn't...so that's good too. at the end of the day it's just midi data so why would it?...but stranger things have happened, and thankfully they didn't. thanks again. learned a lot.

haters gonna hate LOL...seriously though, I get it. I came REALLY close to walking away from PT myself. specifically looked into Reaper and Logic. When I saw just as many issues/problems in their respective user groups as PT, I decided to (again) stick w/the evil I know. I'm old, so I've been w/PT since the 001 days. I know they go back further but I couldn't afford TDM back then. 001 was my gateway. I'm aware PT got complacent, allowing others to eclipse them but when I found that what the others offered wasn't necessarily anything I needed/wanted. Didn't want to have to learn a new ecosystem. and yes, I'm paying more w/PT but not having to pay them $10/mo wouldn't change my financial future if I chose another platform.

Well I think that's the route I'm gonna go then. It'll be money well spent, and I won't have to have the Yamaha taking up all that space in my small home studio anymore. Big thanks to you and @rd2rk for your time and expertise. If I weren't already considering downsizing, I'd probably fight it out w/the Yamaha some more, via the MIDI to USB adapter route suggested, but this situation gave me that extra push to go small, sooner. thanks again.

Okay, regarding the KB reset, the 2nd time was the charm. This time I was greeted by the message, Clr. However, the problem persists. I don't have the cabling needed to take the Helix out of the equation as I've never needed a MIDI to USB until now. That said, now that we know that the Yamaha is the culprit, is there any good reason why this wouldn't work for me? https://www.guitarcenter.com/Arturia/KeyStep-Limited-Black-Edition-1500000048425.gc I am NOT a piano/keys player. I bought the Yamaha back when I had a bandmate who could actually play keys. I just need a small controller for my plugin synths for when I want to add some atmosphere or texture (versus an actual keys "performance") to a recording, and was contemplating purchase of a small controller that I could keep on my desktop long before the Yamaha wigged out. the nice thing about the KB in the link is that it has actual MIDI DIN ports, so no adapters necessary.

I just downloaded a different midi monitor, pic attached. As a best guess, I switched the "display midi notes as" box from hex to decimal. the other display choices were, note (mid C = C3, or, note (mid C = C4). let me know if any of those are preferred.

nothing connected to the host port, nothing connected to midi in port. the switch was always in the MIDI position, I even slid it back and forth a few times in case the connection got wonky. Optimistically tried the sustain pedal (yes, it's Yamaha's own) to no avail. I CAN see the pedal being actuated via the midi monitor I have (see pic). You're right about MAC MIDI monitors. going to the App Store to see if I can find one that offers more info than the one in the pic. I support your evil witch theory because all of this changeover to new gear was going wayyyy too smoothly up until this incident.

this was the first thing I tried as it was potentially the quickest/easiest fix, but no, it wasn't the fix. I was a little concerned that when I did the procedure, nothing special happened w/the KB's display indicating that a reset had occurred. maybe this is by design, but literally every piece of gear I've ever done this on, no matter how old, would at the very least blink the display (in the absence of any actual confirmation message).

Yep, Yamaha. it's sixteen year old P-90 Electric Piano. I did follow your link and will use if necessary. Regarding my Yamaha, I checked the manual and it really didn't offer too much in terms of troubleshooting midi. not the best written manual either. https://www.wwbw.com/Yamaha-P90-Professional-Portable-Stage-Piano-707440.wwbw

it seems the problem might be with my keyboard. when I did the test via Command Center and FS to send a midi note, it worked. I could see the info being recorded on the midi monitor app. But when I turned on my KB, the window started rapidly filling up with F8 messages from my KB as if someone was hammering out 64th notes on whatever key sends an F8 message. while that was happening, if I hit any of the KB keys I could see those notes register on the screen in between the million F8's per-second that were filling the window non-stop. it's like something is jammed on my KB that keeps sending rapid fire F8 messages. Btw- regarding my adapter comment that you didn't understand, regarding frying usb c ports, I was talking about one of these: https://www.amazon.com/Syntech-Adapter-Thunderbolt-Compatible-MacBook/dp/B07CVX3516/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=usb%2Bto%2Busb%2Bc%2Badapter&qid=1655954803&sr=8-3&th=1

two different midi cables. This would be the first time I've used helix w/PT. I had a 2012 MBP that gave up the ghost about 2 years ago and I've been on recording hiatus ever since. I was running a very old version of PT. early 10 if I had to guess. New machine (Mac M1 Max Studio), newest PT version (12), and new interface (Helix). Without getting winded as to my reasons, I had to start from scratch. my keyboard WAS communicating fine with my old version of PT via my box 2 pro firewire interface. Maybe I should bite the bullet and get a small KB controller and go the usb route. My current controller is an 88-key monstrosity anyway.

Before I updated to the latest version of PT, I contemplated going w/another DAW but after 22 years I figured I'd stick w/the evil I know. there's enough outside distractions that can squash creative flow, I don't need it from my DAW too. this is my first hiccup w/the new version.

yep, did all that w/the same result. thanks for trying.

I matched all those settings. still nothing. thanks for your time though

any chance you could share more than the two aforementioned midi settings? I have no idea what MIDI PC Receive, MIDI PC Send, and others should be set to. I've been trying all different kinds of settings but nothing works. As far as protools goes, everything looks good there. I'm definitely not going the usb interface route.

I did that but PT still isn't receiving midi data. I'm reluctant to go the usb route as I've heard stories of usb to usb C adapters frying the usb C ports on my computer (M1 Mac Studio). If I can do it w/the OG midi cables, that's preferred.

I'm using my LT as an audio interface with protools. I have a keyboard hooked up to the midi in of the LT with the hopes of being able to use it to control a mellotron plugin within a protools session. If this can be done, what should my midi settings be? I've been messing around with them in the Global menu but I can't get the keyboard to trigger the soft synth in PT.

How well does it perform in terms of tracking latency whereas it's via the "old" usb, versus usb c or thunderbolt?

Yes but I didn’t see anything specific to running Monterey with the LT as an audio interface on an M1 machine. Unless someone with firsthand experience chimes in, I suppose I can just try it once I get the computer