Buffer latency compensation problem, Mackie Onyx 1640i, PT11 native

[Wirtanen]

Hi all!

I've been reading through this and other forums for the past couple days, but can't seem to find a cause for the exact problem I'm having. Lots of long threads about problems with h/w inserts and adc though. Long story short:

When we're recording audio, Pro Tools does not automatically compensate for the input delay. Buffer size directly affects how late the audio is placed on the timeline. Here's a screenshot to elaborate:

InputDelayTest.jpg
EDIT: Here in hi-res: https://flic.kr/p/rB7SSz

Routing: SOURCE out to Mackie -> from physical output to an input with a cable -> input recorded to Rec_***-tracks with corresponding buffer sizes. SOURCE-track is an internally routed and printed click track.

Tested with:
Fresh booted pc without any extra software running
Fresh session without a template
Delay compensation on and off
Mackie firewire drivers v1.7 and v1.9

What I've learned from other threads, is that Pro Tools is apparently supposed to compensate for this kind of delay automatically (even non-HD), IF the 3rd party device is reporting ASIO latency correctly. DigiTechSupt said this, but can't find the thread anymore to quote, sorry. So I'm starting to suspect if this is Mackie's fault...?

Funny thing is (very funny) that we've been tracking our album for 1½ years now, and only just noticed this now. Acoustic drums were recorded first, then guitars over the drums, and so on. Buffer sizes were small at the beginning, so the delays were small and went unnoticed. 10 song session has grown and got plugins along the way and all, and buffersize has been increased. So, now when we're doing some small fix recordings etc., I have to manually nudge the recorded tracks back. I'm just wondering how much tighter the playing would sound without the small delays on the guitars, basses and vocals.... But I guess I have some careful listening & nudging to do.

Anyhow, are there any Onyx i-series users here? Have you experienced anything similar? Or any other ideas what might cause this? I also sent a mail to Mackie's techsupport asking if they know something about this (earlier today, so no response yet). Can you think of any other test scenarios I could try to narrow down the cause?

Any help or insight would be much appreciated! We jumped to PT when 11 was released, so still in learning.

[Sabotage]

I have the exact same problem here. I never encountered this before, I've used Avid's Mbox2 and RME soundcards and never had a delay in recording. Only now that I switched to the 1640i I encounter this.

I've sent an email to support. Let's keep each other updated if we find a solution as this is a very bad problem,

[Wirtanen]

I got this reply from Mackie's support:

Mackie Tech Support:

The delay that you are seeing in Pro Tools at the different buffer settings is the time that it takes the audio to be converted from Digital to Analog and back from Analog to Digital. From my research there is no way for the Onyx 1640i I/O to be automatically compensated for the input and output delay. It looks like automatic I/O compensation is only available on Pro Tools HD. Also with Pro Tools HD you can manually adjust the input and output delay for all of your I/O. Now if you are adding analog processing to your mix I would just set up a Hardware Insert and in the I/O setup window you can adjust the hardware delay. Also the delay compensation section on the mix window there is a user offset that you can adjust.

When printing tracks in Pro Tools I would recommend having the buffer size as low as possible to reduce latency. Here in Tech Support when we did a similar test we got about 20 samples of delay at 32 bit buffer size. If you have any direct questions regarding how delay compensation works in Pro Tools I would recommend contact Avid directly.

I'm a bit lost with this problem... Isn't Pro Tools supposed to compensate for the input delay, even non-HD?

Originally Posted by Sabotage

I have the exact same problem here. I never encountered this before, I've used Avid's Mbox2 and RME soundcards and never had a delay in recording. Only now that I switched to the 1640i I encounter this.

What PT version did you use with your Mbox2 and RME interfaces? Input delay was automatically and correctly compensated?

I think we have also an Mbox somewhere that came with PT9, so I'll do the test with that also to see how that works compared to the 1640i on our setup.

[Darryl Ramm]

(Edit: Sorry I had so much wrong here writing an earlier quick post I've significantly reedited it.)

Pro Tools (non HD) supports automatic delay compensation, has for quite a while, it was originally a HD only feature. The person from Mackie is correct however that the converter delay is compensated for in Pro Tools HD, it is not compensated for in Pro Tools (non-HD). All this is described in the Pro Tools Reference Guide.

If things are not working for you as expect sit down and spend time playing with your session or a simple test session, turning on and off ADC and seeing what happens (and how limited non-HD Pro Tools is), .... which it looks like you have been doing. Be as analytical with this as possible, set the transport counter to samples which makes it easy to measure delays by just dragging out a selection between events, on multiple different tracks. With non-HD Pro Tools you need to correct ADC conversion delays manually, or correct other needed delays from what you measure. Can you get that to work?

What is the total system delay reported in Session Setup?

If you are using a real hardware insert with delay then you need to set any delay for that insert manually in Setup>IO>Insert.

What version of Pro Tools 11?

And part of my confusion was about whether hardware insets are or are not being ued or not. If they are not then you expect to see 0 delay compensation reported by Pro Tools (non-HD) which I think is what is showing in your screen shot. You can add a hardware inset and see if that gets counted in the delay (it should if the interface driver report a delay properly -- even with non-HD Pro Tools) or a plugin with real delay.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Sabotage

I have the exact same problem here. I never encountered this before, I've used Avid's Mbox2 and RME soundcards and never had a delay in recording. Only now that I switched to the 1640i I encounter this.

I've sent an email to support. Let's keep each other updated if we find a solution as this is a very bad problem,

Would be a lot more help with more setup/config information.

You are describing a failure of ADC to work or reporting a real-time latency?

What version of Pro Tools?

What IO buffer setting?

If an ADC problem, what delays are being shown in Pro Tools? Can you manually compensate for delays (especially if the driver is reporting garbage like 0 sample delay).

[DC-Choppah]

Sounds like ProTools thinks the buffer size is one thing while the hardware is set at another.

When you record, PT knows that you are hearing the cue late due to the buffer. So when it places the audio on the timeline, it places it earlier, back where it should be. But yours are not moving back far enough. That means that the actual buffer size being used by the hardware is LARGER than what PT thinks.

Check the buffer size actually being used by the HW by checking the Mackie driver. Can you set it to something lower (like 2x) lower?

You are having a timing problem that scales with the buffer size, so the fix is going to be a scale factor between the PT and Macki definition of the buffer size.

And no you should not need HD for this. This is basic stuff.

[Sabotage]

I've used PT10 (and PT9) before


Protools knows how to compensate for those latencies when I used Mbox and RME Fireface before. Of course I used direct monitoring when I was at high buffer, but the recording was always exactly on time.

If this is the case with Mackie than it's a huge disappointment and I'm gonna have to sell it.

[Sabotage]

I'm not so sure how we were the first to encounter or talk about this issue. I've done an extensive research before I bought it.and saw nobody mentioning this anywhere in GS or elsewhere.

[Darryl Ramm]

Something is just strange here.

AFAIK the ASIO driver ASIOGetLatencies() reports a latency that includes hardware conversion and buffer latencies.

But Pro Tools knows the buffer size and sample rate anyhow and so can always correct for sample buffer latency, it does not need to ask the driver for latency if (as seemingly claimed for non-HD Pro Tools/third party interfaces) it is not correcting for hardware conversion latency, and if it does what does it do with that info if it is supposedly not correcting for conversion time? Maybe Pro Tools does just ask for the ASIO latency and use that, and Avid is just not fessing up to what Pro Tools is doing. And if so then maybe the driver is reporting wrong latency values. Would be interesting to just poke around find out what the driver is reporting as latency... luckily I don't have one of those interfaces here so can't get distracted doing that.

If Pro Tools thinks the buffer size is different than what the driver thinks it is then really bad things should be happening. Is there a separate Windows control panel that shows anything useful?

It would be very inersting to see how this interface works with Cubase since it is the Gold standard for ASIO comparability.

Seems there is easily enough info here for Mackie support to reproduce the original simple test with Pro Tools and for them to explore why their interface behaves so differently than any other garden variety interface. And none of this actually involved "ADC" in the first place, you should be able to do all comparisons with all that turned off to keep things simple. To me this looks like some failure of just garden variety input buffer alignment, no "ADC" involved. Even if it's down to some weirdness in Pro Tools, its really Mackies problem to solve since its happening with their interface. I suspect talking about ADC etc. to their support staff just confuse them. They need to talk an ultra-simple test like posted at the start of this thread and do an A/B with another interface. If it was me I'd send them that session and ask them to reproduce on the Mackie and a third party interface.

What is really needed from Avid is a clear explanation sample buffer behavior and ADC and how all this stuff really works. Maybe ideally with some sample sessions/tests that folks can play with to understand what is going in. A chapter in the Reference Guide and/or white paper, I don't care, but ADC related confusion causes far too many hassles for users.

[Sabotage]

That's true. ADC has nothing to do with it as it deals with plugin latencies and not recorded latencies.

It seems like Mackie tries to ignore this and they gave me this stupid not helpful reply today:

"
This is not typically an issue experienced with the 1640i. You could try lowering the buffer significantly to reduce latency."

This is obviously them trying to blame it on the DAW, but this occurs on 3 DAWS I tested today. (PT,Ableton,Sony Vegas), and does not happen with my cheap MBox2 or the RME I used to own.