New to PT

[djohnson223]

I haven't played with PT in about 10 years so I am starting out again and I am having some issues with latency on vocals. Here is the equipment I am using specs:

Mac Mini 2020
Catalina 10.15.4 (This is what came with it pre installed)
32 GIG RAM
3.2GHz 6-core Intel Core i7

2 - 27.5 Displays at (3840x2160)
1 - 30.5 TV (1920x1080)

Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 Interface

PreSonus Fadeport 16

I have lowered my buffer to 256 (as low as I can go) and I am still hearing the latency in the headphone (slapback). I have tried LLM (direct monitoring) and it works fine but I cant hear playback due to track mute and I cant do punch ins and outs because the track is muted. Is there any other way around this, this is driving me crazy LOL?

[Sardi]

I don’t own that interface, but your Mini can handle a lot lower latency than that.

Either the Scarlett has crappy drivers or those 4K screens are taxing the mini.

Have you tried running with just one display and seeing if it makes a difference?


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[Southsidemusic]

And also try without the Focusrite and use the internal audio and see if you get better performance, then we can start eliminating stuff one by one.

[djohnson223]

I have tested with one monitor and same issue. I am running plugins on tracks below:

Drums - Superior Drums 3
Kick - CLA Drums
Snare - EQ3 1-Band
Toms - EQ3 1-band
OH Amb - CLA Drums

Bass - EZ Bass and RBass
GTR1 - Amplitube 4 and H-Delay
GTR2 - Amplitube 4 and H-Delay
GTR3 - Amplitube 4 and H-Delay
GTR4 - Amplitube 4 and H-Delay

I deleted all but SD3 and EZbass and still have the issue.

[Darryl Ramm]

you described "slapback" which makes me suspicious that have some mixture of hardware and software monitoring going on.

if you need/want to use software monitoring through Pro Tools what is the lowest buffer size you can operate at with a new session with just one audio track on it recording your voice.

if that is much smaller than you get in the current session, then what if you freeze tracks in your current session--does that improve things?

Is your computer fully optimized? are all the plugins up to date and compatible with your setup? What exact errors do you get at smaller IO buffer size?

There are lot of standard troubleshooting you can try if still stuck, starting with trashing prefs, and moving all the .aaxplugin files out of the plugin folder. Discussed some under "help us help you" up the top of each DUC web page and in many threads on DUC.

[albee1952]

Also, set your MIX window view to show Delay Compensation and look at the numbers at the bottom. If you see numbers that are low(like 11 samples or less), then there's mo problem there, but if you see much higher numbers, you need to do some detective work to figure out why(and let us know how high the numbers are). And, remember that PT does not compensate for latency on a Master Track(so make those plugins inactive while recording as any latency on the master is only going to make things worse).

I also agree that your computer should be able to run a buffer of 64(where buffer latency should not be an issue).

[djohnson223]

It seems to be SD3 and EZ Bass that are eating up the CPU. I froze the two tracks and now I can get to Buffer Size to 64 with no latency and my CPU only gets to 40% when playing the session. I did not know about the freeze feature so thank you so much for the suggestion. Works great now.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by djohnson223

It seems to be SD3 and EZ Bass that are eating up the CPU. I froze the two tracks and now I can get to Buffer Size to 64 with no latency and my CPU only gets to 40% when playing the session. I did not know about the freeze feature so thank you so much for the suggestion. Works great now.

OK great you got things going better.

You should hopefully also be able to get better performance without freezing (but Freezing is *great* and I'd add it into workflows like this with VIs). I run SD3 and can get smaller buffers than that on my 2019 MBP without needing to freezing. But it also depends on what you are doing.

Just would be good to look over your system and see if anything is wrong there that will cause you other issues.

You may want to double check that you have the latest version of these plugins installed. And try trashing prefs (use http://petegates.com/pg-pt-prefs.html) etc.

And check your system is optimized. See under the "help us help you" up the top of every DUC web page.

What drive are you recording to? The internal fast PCIe/NVMe SSD is likely better than any external drive. And especially slow external HDD or low-end flash sticks etc. could cause problems that trigger CPU errors.

In playback engine settings: I would set disk cache to around a few GB to start with, don't leave it "normal". You can try toggling on or off dynamic plugin processing to see if that helps or not. I would also work to get "ignore errors" turned off... that adds latency.

All those extra displays are going to add load to the Mac mini.

[djohnson223]

I have the latest version plugins. Just did the computer over two days ago.

I have the mac set to what it suggest for the optimized settings

I am using the internal drive on the mac

I have "ignore errors" turned off.

I don't see any changes in system usage with one display that i don't see with all three.

[Darryl Ramm]

Great you have done that, maybe there is some extra roughness with 2020.5 and/or Catalina. We'll see as more people get onto that.