Confused about how delay compensation works on aux vs. master fader

[JFreak]

Not a problem if you print it or listen to it.

Just as a concept, think about it: if your final output point has one minute of latency, you only need to wait one minute for playback to start, but it affects nothing else.

[jsbach]

Originally Posted by JFreak

Not a problem if you print it or listen to it.

Just as a concept, think about it: if your final output point has one minute of latency, you only need to wait one minute for playback to start, but it affects nothing else.

That's a brilliant way of explaining it. Thank you!

[JFreak]

No problem. Glad this was helpful.

[Ben Jenssen]

Delay Compensation View Indicators and Field
Delay (dly) Indicator
The Delay (dly) indicator reports the total plug-in and hardware insert delay on the track. The Delay indicator’s report to Pro Tools Delay Compensa- tion Engine can be bypassed when Delay Compen- sation is enabled. This is useful for manually time- aligning a track when the total delay on a track ex- ceeds the Delay Compensation limit. See “Delay that Exceeds the Compensation Limit” on
page 1105.
The display color indicates reported track delay, as follows:
Green Indicates that track delay reporting is en- abled and the track does not exceed the available amount of Delay Compensation.
Orange Indicates that this is the track reporting the longest plug-in and hardware insert delay in the session.
Red Indicates that the amount of plug-in and hard- ware insert delay on the track exceeds the available amount of Delay Compensation (see “Delay that Exceeds the Compensation Limit” on page 1105).
Gray Track delay report is bypassed.
User Offset (+/–) Field
This field lets you adjust track delays manually while Delay Compensation is enabled. The User Offset is added to or subtracted from the amount of delay applied by Track Compensation.
The User Offset is useful for the following cases:
• Formanuallytime-aligningatrackifaplug-inis incorrectly reporting its delay.
• Foradjustingthetiming“feel”ofatrack.
To change track delay using the User Offset field: 1 In the Delay Compensation View, click in the
User Offset edit field.
2 To set your delay value (in samples or millisec- onds depending on your current preferences), do one of the following:
* Enter a positive number (with or without the “+” modifier) for a positive delay (later in time) or negative number (with the “–” mod- ifier) for a negative delay (earlier in time). 

* Drag in the User Offset field to scroll to a new value. For finer resolution, Command-drag (Mac) Control-drag (Windows). 

* Press the Up and Down Arrow keys to in- crease or decrease the numerical values. 
3 Press Enter.
To bypass the user delay: 

 Command-Control-click(Mac)orStart-Con- trol-click (Windows) the User Offset field. The user-defined delay appears grayed out and does not apply to the track.
Track Compensation (cmp) Indicator
This indicator shows the amount of Delay Com- pensation Pro Tools applies to each track.
The display color indicates the amount of Delay Compensation applied, as follows:
1104 Pro Tools Reference Guide
Green Track compensation is enabled and the track does not exceed the Delay Compensation limit. The amount of Delay Compensation shown in the indicator is applied to the track.
Blue (Audio Tracks Only) Indicates that Delay Compensation is force-enabled on the track. When the track is record-enabled or TrackInput-enabled, Delay Compensation is not suspended and remains enabled (see “Overriding Low Latency Monitoring During Recording” on page 1106).
Red Indicates that the track delay exceeds the available amount of Delay Compensation and no Delay Compensation is applied to the track (see “Delay that Exceeds the Compensation Limit” on page 1105).
Gray Indicates that Delay Compensation for the track is bypassed and no delay is applied to the track.


This a copy from page 1005 of PT ref guide
I'm sorry it looks the way it does, but it's what I had to do to not get the 'access denied' error on posting. Strip the text of formatting.

[daeron80]

Originally Posted by Ben Jenssen

Don't bother with master tracks, use a volume control. Or use the 'master' aux. Master tracks are useful for some specific situations when you need to manipulate the digital output of the PT mixer, that's another thread.

Not necessarily. Unless you're mixing to 32-float, you need to dither your output. Dither should always go on a Master track to take advantage of the fact that the gain is pre-plug-in. You don't want to be changing the output level of your dither, or it's doing no good. So it should always go on a stereo Master at the end of the mix path during bounce down when bouncing to any fixed-point bit depth.

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by daeron80

Not necessarily. Unless you're mixing to 32-float, you need to dither your output. Dither should always go on a Master track to take advantage of the fact that the gain is pre-plug-in. You don't want to be changing the output level of your dither, or it's doing no good. So it should always go on a stereo Master at the end of the mix path during bounce down when bouncing to any fixed-point bit depth.

... or print to track with unity gain change

[Ben Jenssen]

I forgot about dither, I mostly work at 48kHz/24bits and bounce to the same, so I seldom use dither anymore. But as Janne said, it's not ncessary to have a master track to dither either. Just leave your last aux, the 'master', at unity gain and put dither on the last insert.

[martthie_08]

Still wondering about the OP's observation with the Pro Tools delay compensation going in to the red with reported latency on an aux at less than 16,383 samples (44.1KHz session).

I have been getting this too and it is a huge pita for printing stems which will then end up not being on the grid and clients are not too happy about this to say the least.
And no, I do not wish to hard-bypass inserts on the mix bus when printing stems.

[shobud10]

You don't have to worry. In fact, if red bugs you, right click and disable delay compensation.

[martthie_08]

I don't see how that explains or solves any of the issues stated above.
But let's give it a try:
How exactly does turning off delay compensation not cause a complete mess of individual tracks running out of sync and the bounced files not offset by plugin latency?