Screen Sharing Pro Tools 9 with Skype

Skype 2.8 for Mac has added a screen sharing feature and Pro Tools 9 allows you to use audio devices other than ones built by Avid.

This means I can now finally Skype with colleagues and clients and converse on the latest project whilst allowing them to see and more importantly hear the project. It took a little bit of time to work out how to do this. I wanted to share the steps I took to save others sometime.

Firstly download and install SoundFlower from this link.

Go to the Application-Utilities Folder and launch the Audio MIDI Setup Application.

Click the + button to create a new Aggregate Device double click the newly created device and name it “PT Skype”. Put a tick in the Use box for Soundflower (2ch) and a tick in the Use box for the normal microphone you use for Skype. On my Mac it is the Built-in Microphone.

Launch Pro Tools 9.

Open the Playback Engine window and set the Current Engine to PT Skype. You may have to restart Pro Tools for the changes to take effect.

Open the I/O Setup and click on the Input tab. Click the Default Button. You should see an input I have named mine Built-in Microphone 1-2.

Click the Output tab. Click Default you should see a stereo output. I have renamed mine Soundflower.

I recommend exporting these settings so you can recall them later.

Now that Pro Tools is outputting to Sound Flower you need to tell Sound Flower which speakers you want Pro Tools outputting to. I want Pro Tools coming out of my studio monitors which are connected via my Mbox 2. So from the toolbar icon I open the Sound Flower Menu and tick the Digidesign Mbox 2 option, see the below screenshot.

You should now hear sound when playing audio in Pro Tools.

The next step is to set up a talkback microphone within Pro Tools.

Create a new mono audio track and choose the input of your microphone. On my Mac it’s the Built-in Microphone. Arm the track and you should be able to hear yourself speaking. See the below screenshot.

The only down side of this method is that you can hear yourself speaking. Reducing the buffer size in the Playback Engine window will reduce the amount of delay.

Whilst Pro Tools is not playing you will hear the armed talkback microphone. As soon as you press play the microphone will not be heard. If you still want it to be heard during playback, select the Input Only Monitoring option from the Pro Tools Track menu. However I do not recommend this.

So finally we have to setup Skype.

Launch Skype. Go to the Preferences window and click the Audio/Video tab. Set the Microphone to Soundflower (2ch). This will receive any audio coming out of Pro Tools including your armed Talkback Microphone.

I believe this method will work with iChat as well but I have not tested it. If you do get it to work let me know.