Various latency with ADAT A/Ds?

[TNM]

hi guys and gals, this one has always stuck in my mind...

IF i happen to go to windows, i am giving up UA and i am going to go with 2 presonus quantums instead, so i can have a fully native system and never leave the DAW (i'll be getting a 16 core 2.8ghz skylake-x, permanently overclocked to 3.5ghz on all cores, 64gb ram, NVME 2TB ssd x2, so, basically a complete beast, that if that can't handle low latency high track count, nothing could).

i WILL be using cubase as well, which is why I want the 48 inputs, even though I know I can only use 32 with pro tools.

Question is still valid here though, and there seems to be some knowledgeable people round these parts regarding various interfaces.

basically, each quantum has 8 a/d of it's own.
But each also has 16 channels of adat a/d

Right now, i DO have 4 adat expanders, for 32 A/D, but they are all different brands! 1 focusrite scarlett octopre, 1 focusrite octopre MKII, 1 ART Tube Opto8, and finally, an old as F*** creamware A8 (still works great!)
Anyway...

I will just run a nice master clock to all of them, or i might try quantum as master and chain the adats via WC/thru, as all of them bar one (octopremk2) have both W/C i/o (the octopremk2 only has an in, so must be last on the chain),The quantum's clock via thunderbolt, same as like my apollos do now.

The thing is.. every single one of these interfaces will have slightly different A/D converter latency!

Even if i stuck to all the same brand, say i had 4 scarlet octopre expanders, THEY would still have different latency to the quantum's own onboard converters.
Or any interface's.. This does not apply just to quantum but to anyone doing a large A/D setup via adat.

How do you deal with this? I don't know of ANY daw that allows different recording delays allowed to be applied to different inserts.. Of course anything can be shifted manually after the fact, but don't forget that the alt-h sample nudge by feature on mac is broken in PT (confirmed by avid multiple times in case anyone thinks I am wrong).

Even if i don't go to windows, i still want to move away from the DSP ethos as UAD and pro tools is not that pleasurable to use especially for overdubs/punch ins... and tritone digital stopped making their automute plugin available.
And on mac, i don't even KNOW of a utility that measures RTL anyway! On windows one can use ce entrance's RTL utility which measures to the sample.

So basically what I am saying is, long story short.. imagine that i will have 5 different sets of A/D inputs, 16 on quantums, and 8 on each of 4 different brand adats. All will have different A/D latency, and no DAW can compensate that automatically on record.

My idea:

Group things.. For example, it's not gonna matter if all my acoustic stuff goes into the quantums, if that's different to all the synths plugged into the adats, right?
Or if record a drum kit, as long as that drumkit is done on the one interface, that should be ok, even though it might be a MS out with all the others? I mean, the only way i could really have issues, is if i recorded one drum on interface 1, another on interface 2, etc..

Is this correct? Is this how you all work around it, by grouping sounds?

Cheers!

[albee1952]

My 2 cents;
While its likely that the different brands could have slightly different conversion times, I seriously doubt you will ever hear anything bad unless you split something across 2 different boxes(like a stereo keyboard or a pair of mics on a guitar cab with left to the ART and right to the OctoPre).

[BScout]

My biggest worry (that is easy to work around) would be that Pro Tools will only compensate for the main (playback engine) interface's delays. So if you parallel compress using any of the other ad/da as the hardware insert, you will have phase/comb filtering issues with the dry signal in the box.

So just make sure those types of inserts are on the main ad/da.

As for mics, the mic delay between two mics and the distance from the sound source already puts a delay that is much greater than different converter's delays unless you plan to use two mics together on the same source in the same mix. Off the top of my head, common places where that would be are two mics on a kick drum (beater and inside) or top and bottom on a snare. But with close-miced drums, anyway, there's a pretty good chance you're going to need to realign the recordings.
And of course, you could just make sure those types of groups are on the same converter unit.

[cwsand]

Originally Posted by TNM

How do you deal with this? I don't know of ANY daw that allows different recording delays allowed to be applied to different inserts..

Honestly I don't really worry about it. Yeah it's good to be aware of it and you could do some testing to see how things line up, but if there's really a problem you should be able to hear it. I agree that you probably shouldn't split a stereo source between interfaces - they'll probably sound a little different anyway. I record everything isolated anyway, so there's usually some pocketing/editing done to correct timing. I usually look at the drum tracks to see how much delay there is between them and to make sure the polarity is correct. If everything is clocked properly, I've never noticed any issues with a full recording using 2 sets of incoming ADAT channels.