LE to HD......Whats the deal with latency?

[The Dougfather]

Hi all,

I'm a long time LE user about to get a shot in a studio on a HD rig. With little time to tinker i'm interested to know how the latency in LE translates to HD, if at all?

In LE i have to have a low buffer or have LLM enabled to get low latency on cue mixes, recorded enabled tracks etc. Does the playback buffer in HD directly affect latency like it does LE?

Thanks in advance

[djjazzy41]

Originally Posted by The Dougfather

Hi all,

I'm a long time LE user about to get a shot in a studio on a HD rig. With little time to tinker i'm interested to know how the latency in LE translates to HD, if at all?

In LE i have to have a low buffer or have LLM enabled to get low latency on cue mixes, recorded enabled tracks etc. Does the playback buffer in HD directly affect latency like it does LE?

Thanks in advance

I'm also a long-time LE user who upgraded to HD about a year ago, so I will attempt to explain the difference as my Sweetwater Sales Engineer explained it to me. If I get off-base, I defer to Brad Lyons' or another more experienced user's expertise, so take what I say with a grain of salt. In HD, there is very close to zero latency when recording to any track as long as there are not any RTAS plug-ins running on the track or master channel as you are recording. This is the case regardless of what your playback buffer is set at. The playback buffer in HD basically acts as a way to give your computer more time to compensate for any RTAS plug-ins or virtual instruments that are being processed by your computer and not the HD card. The really cool thing about HD is that it gives you delay compensation, which I typically have engaged all the time, so that when you mix, the different levels of delay introduced by various RTAS plug-ins do not make individual tracks "drag" behind the others due to plug-in induced delay. So the short answer to your question is no, the playback buffer in HD does not affect latency while recording as long as there are no RTAS plug-ins running on the track you are recording. If I have left anything out, or there are some other scenarios, I hope that other users chime in with their knowledge and expertise. Hope this helps!

[nst7]

When you say "any RTAS plugin", do you mean any or do you mean just the one's with some latency?

Since there are plenty with no latency, will that make any difference? I'm thinking especially of where you're using a native RTAS reverb for the vocalist as they track.

[The Dougfather]

I'm also a long-time LE user who upgraded to HD about a year ago, so I will attempt to explain the difference as my Sweetwater Sales Engineer explained it to me. If I get off-base, I defer to Brad Lyons' or another more experienced user's expertise, so take what I say with a grain of salt. In HD, there is very close to zero latency when recording to any track as long as there are not any RTAS plug-ins running on the track or master channel as you are recording. This is the case regardless of what your playback buffer is set at. The playback buffer in HD basically acts as a way to give your computer more time to compensate for any RTAS plug-ins or virtual instruments that are being processed by your computer and not the HD card. The really cool thing about HD is that it gives you delay compensation, which I typically have engaged all the time, so that when you mix, the different levels of delay introduced by various RTAS plug-ins do not make individual tracks "drag" behind the others due to plug-in induced delay. So the short answer to your question is no, the playback buffer in HD does not affect latency while recording as long as there are no RTAS plug-ins running on the track you are recording. If I have left anything out, or there are some other scenarios, I hope that other users chime in with their knowledge and expertise. Hope this helps!

Thanks for the reply, just what i need to hear and what i hoped was the case.

When you say "any RTAS plugin", do you mean any or do you mean just the one's with some latency?

Since there are plenty with no latency, will that make any difference? I'm thinking especially of where you're using a native RTAS reverb for the vocalist as they track.

Apparently the RTAS plugins have to make the round trip of the playback buffer so there is a processing latency much the same as LE, independent of the plugins own internal latency, if there is any..........i think.

[JFreak]

In other words...

If you build your mixer WITHOUT ANY RTAS PLUGS, then the mixer leaves RTAS ENGINE OUT and therefore the native buffer is zero.

But once you put in FIRST RTAS PLUG, then the mixer needs RTAS engine and therefore native buffer size works just the same way as in LE, which is native only.

You will begin to love TDM plugs and TDM-only tracking sessions :)

[djjazzy41]

Originally Posted by nst7

When you say "any RTAS plugin", do you mean any or do you mean just the one's with some latency?

Since there are plenty with no latency, will that make any difference? I'm thinking especially of where you're using a native RTAS reverb for the vocalist as they track.

Good point. There are many RTAS plugs that have near zero latency that they introduce (like most of the DigiRack plug-ins), and with those you will most times be fine to leave them on a track without noticing any additional latency when recording. Only the ones that introduce noticeable latency will give you fits (Antares Doubler from the Avox toolkit comes to mind here!).

JFreak--you are dead-on correct: Once you get to HD you very quickly see the value of paying the extra $$ for the TDM versions of your favorite plugs. Zero latency; zero drain on your system resources; zero system crashes as a result of introducing them into a session=

[yellifish]

thankyou very much for yours coments!