PT 2018 Native Latency

[nob turner]

I've been running PT 12.8.3 with a UA Apollo on a 2013 Mac Pro 3.7GHz 4-Core Xeon. It works for my applications, minus the usual bugs that each version seems to come with.

I tried upgrading to 2018.7 a few months back, and suddenly I couldn't run at low buffer settings, even with small track count sessions, without errors causing it to stop. I reverted to 12.8.3.

I would like to take advantage of some of the newer features, but I monitor through PT while tracking, so I need to be able to run at the lowest buffers. I don't run much in the way of plugins while tracking.

Please don't suggest I use a more convoluted I/O procedure to track; I've been a recording engineer for 40 years, and I like running PT like a tape recorder. Having to reconfigure signal flow every time I want to record something is a non-starter for me.

Are the later versions of PT Native more tolerant of low buffer settings? Anyone have any suggestions for other ways around this issue? Thanks in advance.

[digiot]

Probably need more info on your system, like what OS are you running?
Also UAD Apollo don't have the greatest low latency drivers. They force you to use their "Console" work around because they don't know how to write good drivers.

[john1192]

Originally Posted by nob turner

I've been running PT 12.8.3 with a UA Apollo on a 2013 Mac Pro 3.7GHz 4-Core Xeon. It works for my applications, minus the usual bugs that each version seems to come with.

I tried upgrading to 2018.7 a few months back, and suddenly I couldn't run at low buffer settings, even with small track count sessions, without errors causing it to stop. I reverted to 12.8.3.

I would like to take advantage of some of the newer features, but I monitor through PT while tracking, so I need to be able to run at the lowest buffers. I don't run much in the way of plugins while tracking.

Please don't suggest I use a more convoluted I/O procedure to track; I've been a recording engineer for 40 years, and I like running PT like a tape recorder. Having to reconfigure signal flow every time I want to record something is a non-starter for me.

Are the later versions of PT Native more tolerant of low buffer settings? Anyone have any suggestions for other ways around this issue? Thanks in advance.

if you are Paid up with your Subscription, just download it, change the name of the earlier version -add full version name, (only on mac- this will allow multiple version at the same time), then you can test on Your System ..

if perpetual pro tools - and you are asking whether to upgrade to newer version / add subscription or something like this .. then thats harder .. as it will be hard to find an apples to apples system exactly same as yours ..

[Southsidemusic]

We run the Trashcans here with 4 Apollo X Series interfaces on Mojave 10.14.2 with PT HD 2018.12 Ultimate at 32 buffersize in Ableton Live10Suite and 64 Buffersize in PT HD 2018 so there is basically 0 latency to speak of here.

Same in LogicX where we run 32 samples and stable to boot!

Which Apollo interface do you have? Asking as Thunderbolt is a lot lower latency than Firewire (old gen 1 silver Apollo)

We use 2 X Apollo X8P and 1 Apollo X16 which are the new ones and one Apollo Twin Duo to control the 3 rack units and this is a seriously stable system with no issues at all since our jump to Mojave. We ran this same setup on the Macs with Sierra and that was epic for our studio aswell so I would recommend using either Sierra or Mojave and skip High Sierra as there are some who have had problems with PT2018.10 and .12 with High Sierra. We went straight to Mojave from 10.12.6 and all went well.

One thing we stay away from is tracking with UAD-2 plugins inside PT. We do track with plugins in UA Console mixer as using UA plugins in PT when recording will add a lot of issues and same with low buffers. Only when we mix do we add plugins (UAD-2) in PT but then we run at 512 or 1024 buffer as the latency doesn’t come into play then.

Let us know if we can add anything more for you as we run the nMP as you do with Apollo gear.

On our PT HDX setup we have had problems with lower buffers even though it ”should” be a great ecosystem but after much headaches with latency and 9371 and 9173 errors etc we only use the HDX system for mixing and do all recording on the Apollo interfaces as it is a great combo for us atleast with Mojave and HD2018.12 Ultimate.

So ... I would update your PT version to 2018.12 and with Apollo it should be a good system. If you have to reinstate your plan then PT 2019 is here soon and then you will have a few options to try out and I hope you will be as happy as we are.

[john1192]

i have an RME BabyFace Pro here now .. and i was thinking it feels good Latency wise ... well, makes sense as the TotalMix / REM is running at 32 samples ... my other Rig is Lynx PCIe Card / Aurora 16 and this has same feel as the Lynx is running at 32 samples too !!! but yes, this is outside Pro Tools .. the way i like to monitor !!

[miul68]

Based of my minimal experience of 40 days on PT, I've never seen any daw freezing with just a few audio tracks (about 10) and few plugins *not very cpu demanding).
Running it on last most powerful macbookpro, of course, with buffer set at 1024
Feeling really perplex about it!

[nob turner]

Originally Posted by Southsidemusic

We run the Trashcans here with 4 Apollo X Series interfaces on Mojave 10.14.2 with PT HD 2018.12 Ultimate at 32 buffersize in Ableton Live10Suite and 64 Buffersize in PT HD 2018 so there is basically 0 latency to speak of here.

Same in LogicX where we run 32 samples and stable to boot!

Which Apollo interface do you have? Asking as Thunderbolt is a lot lower latency than Firewire (old gen 1 silver Apollo)

We use 2 X Apollo X8P and 1 Apollo X16 which are the new ones and one Apollo Twin Duo to control the 3 rack units and this is a seriously stable system with no issues at all since our jump to Mojave. We ran this same setup on the Macs with Sierra and that was epic for our studio aswell so I would recommend using either Sierra or Mojave and skip High Sierra as there are some who have had problems with PT2018.10 and .12 with High Sierra. We went straight to Mojave from 10.12.6 and all went well.

One thing we stay away from is tracking with UAD-2 plugins inside PT. We do track with plugins in UA Console mixer as using UA plugins in PT when recording will add a lot of issues and same with low buffers. Only when we mix do we add plugins (UAD-2) in PT but then we run at 512 or 1024 buffer as the latency doesn’t come into play then.

Let us know if we can add anything more for you as we run the nMP as you do with Apollo gear.

On our PT HDX setup we have had problems with lower buffers even though it ”should” be a great ecosystem but after much headaches with latency and 9371 and 9173 errors etc we only use the HDX system for mixing and do all recording on the Apollo interfaces as it is a great combo for us atleast with Mojave and HD2018.12 Ultimate.

So ... I would update your PT version to 2018.12 and with Apollo it should be a good system. If you have to reinstate your plan then PT 2019 is here soon and then you will have a few options to try out and I hope you will be as happy as we are.

Thanks Christopher. I am running the original Apollo 8 Quad TB interface w/OS X 10.11.6. I'm not running PT Ultimate, just the standard vanilla version. My plan is up to date. Not sure what the differences are with ultimate other than the higher track count, which I don't need.

I suppose it's good to hear that things are working for you... but that doesn't change the fact that I had problems when I tried it. From the relative crickets on that score, I can only assume that either nobody is having latency issues, or nobody actually read my entire original post (as a couple of the responses here imply).

I'm in the final stages of completing 4 albums... I guess that once they're done I'll just have to bite the bullet and spend a couple of days installing and de-installing everything - OS, PT, plugins... I was hoping not to have to go into it blind. That's what I did last fall, and it didn't work.

If anyone has actually experienced this issue, and can suggest where the bottleneck(s) might be, that would still be appreciated.

[maltastudio]

I talked about this a few weeks ago on this forum ....there are New Latency problems that come and go on there own , even by just opening chrome to check the email for example.It is not Pro Tools only related cause I have an exact copy of my system on Win 10 and I have no issues there.
It`s Mac related as well but Im not complaining cause I use Mojave that is not even supported by PT.
I MEAN a 2 track project shouldn`t have latency issues.
Peace

[Darryl Ramm]

Guys (all of you reporting problems here) keeping repeating you have problems is not going to help you. If you want more useful help here from other users you need to provide more info and describe what standard troubleshooting you have done. Start at help us help you up the top of each DUC web page.

What macOS versions and interface driver versions are you running?
What session sample rate? What IO buffer size is actually stable for you? Get ignore errors turned off. Dynamic plugin procession off. And if you have 16GB or more memory set disk cache to 2GB and leave it there.

8GB is less memory than I would want in any current Pro Tools Systems.

Are your systems fully optimized? Get *every* last thing done for now.
What exact AAE errors are you getting?
Have you disabled hyperthreading, try it. Well discussed for Mojave here on DUC.

What standard troubleshooting steps have you tried?

Trashed prefs? Removed all third party plugins? Tested with Built-In Output? Tested starting with a new empty session? Tested from a new Admin user account?

Are you running UAD plugins in Pro Tools... what ones? (You should not be running any in Pro Tools while tracking at low IO buffer. And hopefully you are not... but we cannot guess).

Statements like “latency increases” when other applications are run don’t make sense. You mean the system becomes unstable at low IO buffer sizes so you have to increase that? To what? What exact AAE or other errors do you get? Some web browsers, especially Google Chrone, are memory pigs and if you are low on memory may cause problems. But do what is expected and debug at first with no WiFi and networking and nothing else and see how stable you can get the system. Be real clear what is going on, for example people report “high latency” issues when using aux sends, that is an fixed large playback buffer size induced latency, not input IO buffer size induced latency. Just saying you have “latency” issues does not make clear what is going on.

[Southsidemusic]

Originally Posted by nob turner

Thanks Christopher. I am running the original Apollo 8 Quad TB interface w/OS X 10.11.6. I'm not running PT Ultimate, just the standard vanilla version. My plan is up to date. Not sure what the differences are with ultimate other than the higher track count, which I don't need.

I suppose it's good to hear that things are working for you... but that doesn't change the fact that I had problems when I tried it. From the relative crickets on that score, I can only assume that either nobody is having latency issues, or nobody actually read my entire original post (as a couple of the responses here imply).

I'm in the final stages of completing 4 albums... I guess that once they're done I'll just have to bite the bullet and spend a couple of days installing and de-installing everything - OS, PT, plugins... I was hoping not to have to go into it blind. That's what I did last fall, and it didn't work.

If anyone has actually experienced this issue, and can suggest where the bottleneck(s) might be, that would still be appreciated.

PT Ultimate and non Ultimate are the same app except for Ultimate has more features unlocked so that doesn’t matter here which one you run.

Also Apollo 8P and X8P will work the same as their installer and core audio is the exact same so thats why I posted what works here as it should work for you aswell.

I will ask my tech interns and have them read your posts and see what they mighr come up with but in the meantime Please answer the questions asked by Darryl Ramm here in this thread.