Plugins / Delay Compensation / Timing / Downbeat [PT-263943]

[Sardi]

Originally Posted by JFreak

If your Avid plugins and most 3rd party plugins work alright, my first guess would be faulty 3rd party plugin. But by all means ask support from both

He’s mentioned several times in the thread that it happens with AIR Filtergate. That is not a third party plugin.

Did you try it following the steps he outlined? I did. It definitely occurs if the plugin is instantiated after a latency inducing plugin. If before, the timing is correct.

He is right in that somewhere down the line, the MIDI clock information being sent to plugins that use it for rhythmic timing is being delayed. Small delays aren’t much of an issue. Big delays and it’s a mess.


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[JFreak]

In that case it would seem MIDI timing is off on that PT version and it is a global issue, nothing AIR can do to fix.

[JingleDjango]

Thanks, JFreak. I've been in touch with the 3rd party developer as well. Nothing conclusive yet.

[JingleDjango]

Here is one more short video detailing the ADC bug concerning LFOTool:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2Xfba9xgg0 (~50sec)

I've confirmed the same behaviour occurs if I downgrade to PT ver. 2020.03.

The gist of it is that sometimes LFOTool will cause a track's delay compensation value to null. Disabling the insert will return the track ADC value to its correct state.

RTGraham, I'm curious whether you've noticed any of the same behaviour on your system or with any different plugins.

[Sardi]

It’s not PT version specific AFAIC tell. I tried it on 2019.5 and had the issue.


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[RTGraham]

Originally Posted by JingleDjango

Here is one more short video detailing the ADC bug concerning LFOTool:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2Xfba9xgg0 (~50sec)

I've confirmed the same behaviour occurs if I downgrade to PT ver. 2020.03.

The gist of it is that sometimes LFOTool will cause a track's delay compensation value to null. Disabling the insert will return the track ADC value to its correct state.

RTGraham, I'm curious whether you've noticed any of the same behaviour on your system or with any different plugins.

I haven't specifically noticed this (nulling the delay compensation), but I also haven't looked for it. I've been tied up with remote editing pretty nonstop and haven't been able to check in on this thread for a few days, let alone do any more experimenting, but I'll absolutely have a look at this as soon as I have a moment and let you know what I see.

As far as support case status, I had some communication back and forth with the support team, where they requested a couple of test sessions and indicated that they'd be sending it all on to Engineering. The current status is "research pending."
A colleague also put me in touch with someone who has some ties to Avid, and was able to confirm that this is in fact being looked at.
That doesn't guarantee that it'll be fixed. I'm sure there are a ton of issues that need to be chased down and addressed, and fixing them will get prioritized based on how severe they seem to be and how many users they seem to affect.
This is something that appears to have been present at least as far back as PT10 (I still have a PT10 installation for porting legacy sessions and I can reproduce the issue there), and when I've periodically searched for any chatter about it online, I've found nothing or next to nothing - so it may not be perceived as a big deal.
What prompted me to finally post about it myself, though, was that I was able to distill it down to a short, simple list of easy steps yielding a predictable result. So what had felt like a random problem became quantifiable, and therefore fixable.
So we'll see where it all goes.

Originally Posted by Sardi

It’s not PT version specific AFAIC tell. I tried it on 2019.5 and had the issue.


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I've seen it in all versions of 2020, all versions of 2019, all versions of 2018, and all versions of PT12. I *think* I saw it in PT11 but no longer have a PT11 installation to test it in. I've tested it in a PT10 installation that I still keep active for porting legacy sessions, but that installation coexists with 2020 and I can't guarantee that PT10's behavior isn't somehow affected by some shared library installed either by newer versions of Pro Tools or by an OS update since PT10 was first introduced.
But yeah, this is light years away from being version-specific.
It's also light years away from being a third-party issue, as the problem can be dialed in with only two plugins in the session, both of them bundled with PT (i.e. various A.I.R. plugins along with Maxim).

[Franklyn]

Hello,
I have a similar problem and I think it is based on the same problem that you are describing.

F.e. all NI instruments (and many other third-party plug-ins) witch includes an internal sequencer (f.e. Kontact, Maschine, Komplete controll, ...) do not work in sync with the ProTools Sequencer with active ADC. Their internal sequencers(!) are not correctly delay compensated.

Midi notes from ProTools midi tracks work well with these plug-ins, only the internal sequencer plays with an offset.

This is a poor implementation of the sequencer part in the aax plug-in.

I don't think it's a ProTools bug, as there are some other plug-ins that work well with ADC enabled. F.e. Toontrack products and their internal sequencer/Midi player are playing absolute in sync. "Boom" also works perfectly.

I told NI about this problem many years ago. But no body cares about it. I think the support people don't really understand this particular problem :)

I am surprised that so few people struggle with this problem. bpm-synchronized effects and instruments are so important in modern music.

This is not system specific. Anyone can confirm this.

I am sure that the programmers of these plug-ins can correct this. Because, when I use the VST NI instruments in the Vienna Ensemble pro (aax) in Protools, all internal plug-in sequencers are playing absolutely perfectly in time. This is the only way to get around this problem. And it shows that it can be done right.

[JingleDjango]

Thanks for sharing your experience, Franklyn. I've been assured by a 3rd party developer that the issue lies beyond their control. With no input from Avid on this I have no way to judge that claim but it sounds as though RTGraham has had a similar conversation with a different dev sharing the same opinion.

I don't have access to any Toontracks plugins but I did just try a test session following the same methodology as RTGraham outlines in the original post, but replacing the SigGen & Filter Gate plugs with an instance of Boom. As instances of Maxim are added in series before Boom the drum pattern goes out of sync in the same way we experience with the other inserts. You should try yourself.

[XJENSEN]

Confirmed, also seen this with BOOM. Goes completely out of sync.

[bolooki]

sup y'all - got a response from Steve himself from Xfer concerning LFO tool:

https://xferrecords.com/forums/lfo-t...aax#post_74810

"steve_xfer 2 days ago:

AFAIK This is AVID's bug to fix, there is nothing that LFOTool is reporting, it recieves time position info from the DAW which is being reported to LFOTool incorrectlly.

My understanding is it affects other plugins beyond LFOTool.

The root issue might be more complicated, but my experience was that ProTools is not compensating time position sent to plugins properly when you have a latency greater than 2048 samples."

2048 is a good hint here I think as far as knowing when to give this issue a heads up or at least when to freeze before moving on.