Sample Latency and Delay Compensation

[RxdB]

PT 8 HD5 system Mac osx

So what's the deal with the sample latency display on each track. Is that supposed to be the exact number of latency in samples BEFORE the auto-delay compensation? The reason i ask is because when i use the auto compensation, my clients complain about hearing changes in the swing of their track. (I do use tons of plugin's but, the total amount of latency is well within the auto-correctable amount.) When i bounce the track realtime, and attempt to shift the audio the exact number of samples that the source track indicates, it is usuall way off. In fact, it has not been right once so far. From what i can tell those numbers have no bearing in the real world. Sometimes it seems to auto-correct the timing of the newly bounced track and i don't need to adjust it at all, but that's rare. It seems like it's not very consistant. So that being said, if we can't trust the sample latency numbers being displayed, how can we trust the auto-delay compenstaion. And why is it so buggy. It seems like no matter what i do, i always have to bounce it and align it visually with every single track. What a pain. Anybody else experiencing this? I thought is was a $20,000 rig - what's going on here?

[beast7]

Much the same experiences with delay compensation. I regularly have issues with split elements for TV and film being mis-alligned with the mix output regardless of the latency numbers and delay compensation being switched on.

The weirdest thing is that it seems to advance the non plug-in'ed busses to compensate, thereby putting them early and out of sync.

Again, it always appears to be way below the 4000 sample threshold.

What a bore!

[crizdee]

Hi,

If either of you 2 users getting this problem could upload the session file (the .pdf file, no audio, just the session file) someone here and or Digi support will take a look and see if there's something going on or whether there's some setup problem.

ADC works fine for 99% of us and i have never seen issues like you are describing. and there's should never be a need to manually move regions for alignment purposes as long as the tracks are within the delay comp range.

Chris

[networker]

What he said.

[scottleader]

THe only thing I can think of. Are you using alot of outboard gear in mix?
If you are, they need to be on Parallel Ins and Outs.

[Dizzi45Z]

When I first started using Pro Tools HD, I made the mistake of recording with RTAS plug-ins on the master bus. When it was causing some delay while recording, I routed the tracks I was recording to another master bus output to avoid the delay and turned Delay Compensation off. I kept the rest of the tracks going through the 1st master bus. When I then had the recorded tracks go back out of the 1st master bus, they were out of sync. Could you be doing something like this?

I don't have this problem any more because I always make sure that.

#1. The tracks I am recording are routed straight to a master bus. I don't route to busses, then to the master bus when tracking. This can especially be a problem if you have an RTAS plug-in on a bus you are routing through.

#2. The tracks I am recording only have low latency TDM plug-ins active.

#3. The Master bus(es) have no more than one or two super low latency TDM plug-ins active on them. I try to avoid having any plug-ins on the Master bus until I start mixing.

Since I have done these things, Delay Compensation seems to be something that I turn on and don't have to think much about. I don't ever have problems with Delay Compensation not working properly unless I run past the 4000 something limit.