[agoraphobia]

Hi,

I've had issue for a while...

I've had an Avid Artist mix (brand new in box) for around 4 or so months now and something I've noticed, which really bothers me is the speed in which ProTools responds to fader moves seems dependent on playback engine's buffer size. For instance if I push a fader up from -∞ to -0db with a buffer size of 1024 samples, there is a significant delay (less than a second, but noticeable) between when that fader is physically moved to when I hear the volume of the audio change. At 64 samples it's far less noticeable, but it's certainly no analog fader.

When I'm writing automation things get even more interesting...
Keeping in mind that when a session gets quite dense (towards the end of the mix typically) it's not uncommon for me to be mixing with a higher buffer size selected to avoid errors. When I write automation I've noticed that i have to anticipate quite a fair amount for me to make the change I want for me to hear it in realtime. Annoyingly though once I hit stop, when I playback the automation I've just written to that track it sounds like it's compensated ahead in time even more!

An example to illustrate what I'm talking about - let's say a chorus is coming up and I'm going to do a big ride on the master fader for it, I'll anticipate that it's coming and turn up the fader intentionally ahead in time to make sure I catch the downbeat. Sweet? No. When I play it back that volume ride will be boosted even earlier than what I heard when i was writing it in the first place.

If I write automation with a mouse in ProTools on the fader it seems to be fine and I don't experience this problem so it has to have something to do with the avid artist mix.

Am I crazy?

I'm on Macbook Pro Retina 2014 (Yosemite), ProTools 11 standard.

Thanks