Plug in Delay Compensation - Whats the problem

[john a]

I wouls just like to point out that folks working in a Post environment have real peoblems in this are as well- if you have processing on your nat/sync tracks, abd you are outputtinf through a master fader with an Ren Comp, and eq and an L2, say, your dialogue will be out of sync. You have to figure the delays on every track, add up the auxes involved and the master fader and then shift all the tracks. Then you have to comment on every track exactly what you did so that if you or someone else makes changes to the session a re-compensation can be made. Totally annoying stuff to have to do on large sessions, but unavoidable.

[protooleriate]

I know not everyone is fussed about it, but at the end of the day PT is used by loads of people in numerous ways. As a result, for some people delay compensation is important, so i thought I would put in a post to keep this thread current as it does need sorting out

[rojo]

Yes this seems like a more serious problem for post. If you spot a sound to a visual event and have to slip it back by the sum of the plugin latencies it is no longer physically at the same SMPTE address as its image. I imagine this as confusing to follow, intuitively one would like to be able to spot on the location of the visual. Not nnsamples before. Lot's of problems when you have to add or remove something afterwards. You have to slip everything back if you master over the two-buss, differentialed differentials. WOW. It's easy to keep track of but it would really make me afraid of changing anything during the mix. Cuts creativity, huh.
In music I just shift things around the way I want with live Audio using methods that I've learned along the way and my ears. With loops and edit pieces it doesn't really matter, because we're creating the grooves. I'm always compensating and taking notes anyway, just knowing about it bugs me, so I fix it. It doesnt take any time at all, that's why I never griped.
SO what's the answer? I don't want a program that's going physically shift my tracks around, to me that's just as confusing. It might need to done in the hardware, dedicate a few chips to act as buffers and realign every track and submix and move the midi around as well. Will the automation and fades survive this process? Just a thought.
It's gargantuan. We probably won't see it soon.

[Diginerd]

Currently you have to physically move the tracks to get over the problems.

For disk tracks it's actually not that hard (Which is why VST has had it forever). You simply play back the tracks X samples earlier, where X is the delay produced by the plugins.

This applies to fades as they are disk tracks.

Automation stay's on "Absolute time", as does the waveforms and regions on screen.

In otherwords you can still grid your audio.

By the looks of things plugins announce their delay in samples to PT so it should be trival to implement a pre-cache.

Difficulties arise under several scenarios though:-

1. Calculating offests for auxes introduces a random, rather than fixed latency compenent for the entire mix depending on how you ave set up your mixer (Think about it)

2. This also applies to any live inputs, which is why VST (and Nuendo!) don't have this option on any live inputs, as it is simply not possible to process audio ahead of time. Unless you invent a time machine.

3. Plugins with variable latency cause problems too, autotune is an example of this. In which case it's impossible to compensate. To solve this would require Autotune to have a fixed latency of the largest possible delay, which without latency compensation would make it next to unusable. Without Voc Align, which is where the smart money is already.. ;-)

4. Maybe the assumption that plugins post their latencies to PT is false, and then the entire shooting match goes out the window!

Personally I'd be happy with disk track based delay, and in actual fact auto compensation is nice, but I'd like to be able to manually override it so I can futz with the groove (a la MIDI tack offests).

Still waiting on a reply from Digi after they closed the last thread!!!!

This is getting so old now that when I started asking for this I wasn't married, and didn't have a kid with another on the way!!!

PUUUUUUHHHHHHLLLLLEEEEEEEAAAAAASSSSSEEEEE!?

[slangification]

This post is regarding the following thread that was locked by the DUC Administrator:

http://d uc.digidesign.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=16;t=015592;p=

Originally posted by DigiCS:
posted October 15, 2002 01:28 PM
-------------------------------------------------
We hear you loud and clear, and get the point.

It's a tad busy around here right now, so we're a little late getting to this thread. However, I have requested that Engineering and Product Development post some background information on this issue and it's challenges.

Thanks for your patience, we will post a response under a new topic heading.

In the meantime I'm locking this thread, as it has become quite the guerilla marketing tool for some first time posters....

DigiCS

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I am a strong supporter of Digidesign. But I honestly don't understand how this thread could be shut down without Digidesign straightforwardly addressing the issue being raised by so many of their longtime professional users.

This is the real deal. It's a "problem." Is it really necessary to silence the voices of those who communicate it? And why expect the voices to quiet before the issue is resolved? But most of us here are willing to give Digidesign the benefit of the doubt -- we're simply listening for a some type of explanation.

This is not an issue being raised by "first-time posters". The requests come from deep within the Digidesign user base. To illustrate my point, I've done some (tedious) work for Digidesign. Here are the people who contributed to that thread (not including those on this thread), and how many times they have posted to the DUC to date:

The Eggman: 106
FajitaTone: 361
Nick Le Mon: 17
auxsend1: 39
Produceher: 875
Vaphoron: 360
Seventh Factor: 1 (The one and only first-time poster on the thread)
haze: 641
waves3: 25
Fidelis: 43
shadowbox: 404
Jeff ******** 188
beatboy: 138
leebeefunny2: 21
ctmartin: 98
Footprints: 13
Ray Lyon: 273
GrooveEntertainment: 31
gabriel_p: 643
Vinylizor: 33
audio junkie: 186
Lee Blaske: 1438
bionicsuperfly: 23
Zownd: 50
Felix: 796
tzujan: 69
uno1234: 1525
tripit: 112
Jules: 2174
The1stAmendment: 41
tron: 385
etherize: 218
kid pro: 15
DC2light: 48
Daniel_Dettwiler: 267
ckevperry: 90
666: 266
nukmusic: 225
schmeete: 40
Eduardo Apolonia: 105
MMazurek: 183
cebolao: 37
Haniel Trisna: 192
Hsk: 64
Diginerd: 60
Jim Chapdelaine: 149
ToolWeanie: 24
KamaSutra77: 960
Chris Lambrechts: 418
RKrizman: 155
clutch: 132
eggbacon: 11
DrTone: 41
Camilo Orozco: 487
john a: 188
Targon: 372
Diegux: 22
cjguitar: 78
Nick Le Mono: 7
Darrell Diaz: 180
markjohn: 48
groundcontrol: 8
AdamFrick: 400
Noiz2: 686

[JasonWorrel]

Top ten posters in thread:

Jules: 2174
uno1234: 1525
Lee Blaske: 1438
KamaSutra77: 960
Produceher: 875
Felix: 796
Noiz2: 686
gabriel_p: 643
haze: 641
Camilo Orozco: 487

Total: 10225 posts

Total posts in PT TDM for Mac OS forum: 76405

Thats more than 13% of the TDM forum total posts. Hardly some first time posters. More like some of the DUC's biggest contributers.

[AvidCS]

Slangification and Jason:

It looks like you went to quite an effort to support your position. Please understand that closing this thread had nothing to do with the legitimate contributions from our longtime posters. It had attracted some first time posters who signed up to the DUC and were using this discussion solely as a way to link and promote competitive products. Folks are free to promote their products on the net, just not on a site sponsored and support by Digi. Those posts were removed.

Please review what I posted. I've asked Digi engineers and our product development department to address the legitimate requests posted here for this feature addition. They will do so, and I will post it when it is ready.

Thanks for your patience.

DigiCS

[bassmac]

As long as we're counting, then count me in too. [img]images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

I figured the real question is who wouldn't want it? [img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img]

[The Eggman]

Originally posted by slangification:
I am a strong supporter of Digidesign. But I honestly don't understand how this thread could be shut down without Digidesign straightforwardly addressing the issue being raised by so many of their longtime professional users.

This is the real deal. It's a "problem." Is it really necessary to silence the voices of those who communicate it? And why expect the voices to quiet before the issue is resolved? But most of us here are willing to give Digidesign the benefit of the doubt -- we're simply listening for a some type of explanation.

This is not an issue being raised by "first-time posters". The requests come from deep within the Digidesign user base. To illustrate my point, I've done some (tedious) work for Digidesign. Here are the people who contributed to that thread (not including those on this thread), and how many times they have posted to the DUC to date:

The Eggman: 106
FajitaTone: 361
Nick Le Mon: 17
auxsend1: 39
Produceher: 875
Vaphoron: 360
Seventh Factor: 1 (The one and only first-time poster on the thread)
haze: 641
waves3: 25
Fidelis: 43
shadowbox: 404
Jeff ******** 188
beatboy: 138
leebeefunny2: 21
ctmartin: 98
Footprints: 13
Ray Lyon: 273
GrooveEntertainment: 31
gabriel_p: 643
Vinylizor: 33
audio junkie: 186
Lee Blaske: 1438
bionicsuperfly: 23
Zownd: 50
Felix: 796
tzujan: 69
uno1234: 1525
tripit: 112
Jules: 2174
The1stAmendment: 41
tron: 385
etherize: 218
kid pro: 15
DC2light: 48
Daniel_Dettwiler: 267
ckevperry: 90
666: 266
nukmusic: 225
schmeete: 40
Eduardo Apolonia: 105
MMazurek: 183
cebolao: 37
Haniel Trisna: 192
Hsk: 64
Diginerd: 60
Jim Chapdelaine: 149
ToolWeanie: 24
KamaSutra77: 960
Chris Lambrechts: 418
RKrizman: 155
clutch: 132
eggbacon: 11
DrTone: 41
Camilo Orozco: 487
john a: 188
Targon: 372
Diegux: 22
cjguitar: 78
Nick Le Mono: 7
Darrell Diaz: 180
markjohn: 48
groundcontrol: 8
AdamFrick: 400
Noiz2: 686

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Slang,

Extremely good work on that. I, having started that original thread, was a bit miffed that DigiCS shut down my thread rather than simply deleting the very improper links to the competition. I agree with DigiCS, the links were not cool. But it was very good that you did the research to show that many of us are long time posters and are simply voicing our opinions on this very important subject.

When DigiCS shut down my thread, rather than firing off an immediate letter to him, I took a step back and cooled off. I'm willing to go with DigiCS on this as long as he makes good on his promise to force Digi engineers to address the topic publicly, on the DUC, and in the VERY near future. After all, I think that most of us want the same thing, which is to see the Digi platform continue in its development and address the needs of the discerning user.

Don't let us down now, DigiCS. You made the promise to all of us. Now keep it.

Thanks Slang for the effort!

[ejsongs]

To digi cs guy:

this is the second time in 2 days that you have deleted my post. Below is the second post that you deleted. Why??? am I the new guy who has never posted before that supposedly signed up just to promote other products?

Originally posted by ejsongs:
not only did digi close the thread they deleted my post as well. I guess the truth hurts.

ej

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">What I stated in my original post were facts:

both nuendo and logic have plug in delay compensation and PT doesn't.

My question was simple...Why???

I think that it is embarrissing that they cost significantly less than PT and have a feature that we've been requesting from you for the past two years with hardly any response or action on it. that is my opinion. how many days has it been since this thread or the one you shut down were created. The only action thus far has been you shutting down a thread and promising to have someone post some sort of explanation which I am anxiously waiting to see. How many years has this topic been around? I know it has been for at least the 2 years or so I've been around. I rest my case.

I am not trying to promote anything. I just want digi to make improvements that really matter to us. this is one of them.

I don't really want to use any other software but sometimes you give us no other choice. for example I'm sure that many of us who sequence and record audio would love nothing better than to do it all in PT but right now that is not a real option. There are also sonic issues that we've been complaing about for years that are still not addressed. Your competiors have. I don't know if you realize this but by not listening to us you force us to look elsewhere.

In order to compete I have to stay current and so do you. If cheaper products come around and do things that are important to us better that you do them what are we supposed to do? that is the whole point of this thread. We all bought into your system in order to give us a competitive edge and we expect you to continually deliver things that will keep PT on top simply because it helps us stay on top. You guys sometimes come across as we are digi and therefore we don't have to really try. It is that perception that is one of the causes of threads like this one becoming so large.

I won't be surprised if this post will be deleted in the morning as well but before you do that please pass it along so that you guys may be aware of what people say and feel about your actions on the street. My goals are yours are the same... I want you to still be in business in ten years. If you continue to ignore things that are important to us then it may be harder for you guys to stay around.

Put simply if PT is supposed to be the best then be the best.

ej