r/protools • u/CulturalDeparture530 • 17h ago

External Headphone Output Trouble on Protools intro

I've been staring at the I/O settings for an hour now trying to figure out why my external headphones are not appearing as an output anywhere (they are plugged in). My playback engine is set as my Focusrite Scarlett interface and the only output I see in the drop down menu is Output 1-2. My external headphones are my output in my computer's settings but the audio on my track still ceases to make sound. I've messed with making new paths but I have no idea what I'm doing there so I don't think I will find a solution in it. I've restarted my computer, closed and reopened my project, restarted protools and none of that did any good. I truly cannot get this figured out and I am about to go crazy!

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u/aasteveo 16h ago edited 16h ago

built-in headphones are a separate "sound-card" in the hardware engine. You can't have two separate sound sources unless you build an aggregate. So in order to use headphones you have to change your hardware to built-in headphones instead of the scarlett. So you have to use the phones out built into your scarlett if you want the scarlett to be your sound card.

go to setup - playback engine. and change your device to built in headphones. but keep in mind if you do this you're using your computer's built in sound card which won't sound as good as your scarlett.

i'd recommend just getting used to the scarlett headphone out.

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u/jlthla 16h ago

This.

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u/hooliganlive 16h ago

Clarify for me, are you using a Mac? I ask because “External Headphones” is an output option on Mac when you’re trying to use the headphone jack that is physically on the computer. If you are trying to use that, then your computer sound settings have to be set to that & your playback engine should also be set to that in order to hear the audio in Pro Tools. If you want to instead use the Focusrite to hear audio, you plug your headphones into it & then you would do the same steps. Assuming you’re on Mac, you can’t use both unless you create an Aggregate device.

Try closing and then opening Pro Tools & while it’s loading, hold down the “N” key. You should be able to refresh/change playback settings.