AAX DSP before AAX Native plugin

[smetaxas]

Guys, in the TDM world, if I wanted to track through a native plugin, I would put a TDM plugin before it & everything was fine, no latency. I've tried that with my HDX card but it doesn't seem to work. I can't imagine they broke this feature with the HDX card. Is there something I am doing wrong?

[jjnssn]

Originally Posted by smetaxas

Guys, in the TDM world, if I wanted to track through a native plugin, I would put a TDM plugin before it & everything was fine, no latency. I've tried that with my HDX card but it doesn't seem to work. I can't imagine they broke this feature with the HDX card. Is there something I am doing wrong?

It works here on my PC HDX system. When you say it doesn’t work could you clarify what you mean? Are they same plugins DSP and Native, comparing TDM to HDX? Do the plugins have the same reported latency? My understanding is you will always have the Native latency adder. What are you monitoring, the output of the channel or the master fader? Do you have Native plugins on the master fader?



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[smetaxas]

Okay, for example I'm in a 48k 24 or 32 bit session & I'm monitoring off the main outputs 1 & 2. Buffer is usually either 256 or 512 and delay compensation is on.

I put an aax dsp "Trim" plug in then put "Waves CLA Bass" which is aax native. When I hit record, I get latency & the track plays back late. Never had this problem with TDM.

[Dan IceWood]

Do you have "compensate for record latency" switched on?
also with a high buffer like that then you will have high listen latency, go down to 64/128 and the latency should be much better.

Last point, how many samples latency is the waves plugin you are using?

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by smetaxas

Okay, for example I'm in a 48k 24 or 32 bit session & I'm monitoring off the main outputs 1 & 2. Buffer is usually either 256 or 512 and delay compensation is on.

I put an aax dsp "Trim" plug in then put "Waves CLA Bass" which is aax native. When I hit record, I get latency & the track plays back late. Never had this problem with TDM.

You have lots of information in front of you that you could/should be looking at.

What is the exact sample latency you are seeing. Measure against the same signal flow with no plugins and play around and see the differences as you add remove plugins.

What delay compensation latency is being reported. What happens when you turn off delay comp?

When you make the IO buffer very small what happens to the latency, does that decrease as expected (the effect should be 2 X the sample buffer delay since you have to go in and out through the buffer).

Waves documents latencies of all their plugins. Is the delay comp and/or observed delays consistent with that and the IO buffer delays?

We don't know how you recorded stuff to the track in the first place and if it is on disk with correct timing or not. Was that recorded against a click track or some other way you can check that?

[smetaxas]

Thank you so much for the help guys, much appreciated! How do I see what the latency of the plugin is?

I thought the whole point of HDX was so I wouldn't have to worry about latency. Never had any of these problems with TDM. I could run at 512 buffer & simply put a TDM plugin in front of the rtas native plugin & it would automatically compensate for the delay. It would also let me track with the rtas plugin without any problems.

[Darryl Ramm]

Delay comp latency is show on at the bottom of the tracks in the mix window, when show delay compensation is selected in the mix window. See the Reference Guide if you are still stuck.

Lets be careful with no-latency claims, all HDX can do is remove IO Buffer latency and on a plugin by plugin basis may offer a low plugin latency. You still have in and out convertor latency, HDX-DSP plugin latency and if you insert a native plugin then IO buffer in and out and native plugin latency. HDX will actually get you a worse latency experience with native plugins than just running HDN, that has been well discussed on DUC before.

What latency comp is supposed to/can do is another thing and we don't have your session in front of us to see. And the latency comp here may just be broken... but you have the tools in front of you to work out what is going on.

[Rich Breen]

Originally Posted by smetaxas

Guys, in the TDM world, if I wanted to track through a native plugin, I would put a TDM plugin before it & everything was fine, no latency. I've tried that with my HDX card but it doesn't seem to work. I can't imagine they broke this feature with the HDX card. Is there something I am doing wrong?

This still works the same, and this has *always* been the worst case scenario for latency.

[Dan IceWood]

I realised my last comment was misguided as you (the OP) wrote that you were placing a native plugin after a DSP. I'm sure someone else has said it by now but if not, this is the source of your latency.

With HDX you are streaming audio from the ad converter straight to the mix engine on the HDX card. When you introduce a Native plugin, the audio then has to be bussed from the PCIe card to the host computer CPU -> processed with the normal host based audio buffers included and then fed back to the PCIe card to feed the DA converter.

This is where the latency comes from. The moment you introduce a native plugin on a record channel you are forcing the system to add the HDX latency to the host latency.
HDX will work life KR this but was never intended to. That's the point of DSP plugins. Audio comes in from the AD converter, gets processed on the DSP chips on the PCIe card and then goes straight back out to your DA converter.

[aidyhall]

I track using Native plugins like virtual synths or guitars on Guitar Rig all the time, on an HDX rig. I usually put a DSP Trim plugin first in the chain, and use a buffer of 128 samples if the system will allow it. Latency is virtually non-existent.

I usually mix with a 512 buffer size, but if I'm doing overdubs later in a mix when there are a lot of plugins being used, and I can't reduce the buffer to 128 samples without the CPU load getting too high, then 256 is usually fine to do overdubs.

The usual culprit for latency is the mix buss plugins, so you'll need to deactivate those (bypass will not reduce latency) and make sure that the track you're recording onto is not sub-grouped, but goes straight out of the main mix output. Then you should be good to go!