recording/monitoring

[danyg]

Since 1 year I only mix on PT 12 vanilla and I'm happy. As a longtime user I still track and pre produce in Logic Pro because I'm so much faster on it.
Now I started some recording tests in PT 12 vanilla and run into the problem that so many people reported. Input monitoring, phasing sound and latency.

It's nearly impossible to find a reliable answer because the old threads are talking of PT versions from the past 5 years. Some say this, some say that. Some say PT 12 changed the game etc...
Right now I'm monitoring through my analogue desk. And I can work with PT. So I perfectly understand the theory. Did Avid made a PT12 version behaving like the other DAW's Logic, Cubase, ST1 etc or is it still like it always was. Only possible in HDX. I'm still on 12.4.
Thank you guys

[albee1952]

There are several things that can cause what you describe. whether you can find and solve all will depend on how you like to work, and how your console is wired into everything(I don't use a console, so I may not be much help). Latency is a combination of a few things;
1-conversion latency(time it takes to convert analog>digital and back)
2-the buffer setting(how much time you give the system to process audio)
3-latency caused by plugins(which can be zero, or all the way up to several thousand samples)
4-phasing is USUALLY the result of either multiple microphones that are not placed correctly, or you may have the same audio going thru more than 1 path, with 1 path having more latency than the other(s)

Some folks new to this think that ADC(Automatic Delay Compensation) makes latency go away....it doesn't. It looks at all tracks and finds the track(s) with the most latency(ignoring the Master track) and makes all other tracks late by the same amount. This means that its important(on a non-HDX rig anyway) to pay attention to plugin latency. When I track, I have no more than 10-11 samples of total latency due to plugins and use the 64 buffer setting.

I would start by checking your buffer setting(go as low as your computer can handle) and I always show Delay Compensation(MIX window) so I can A-see what's going on. And B-spot bogus Delay Compensation, which can happen if you have a send on any track that doesn't actually route anywhere(example; you add a send to a vocal track to feed an AUX track with a delay plugin. Then you change your mind and delete the AUX track. That send will confuse PT and it will add a lot of bogus compensation to some/all other tracks

[danyg]

albee1952, thank you. I understand and agree with everything you said.

1.
In my case everything works perfectly without an issue at 32 latency and a few test tracks.
Today I found the culprit. When I simple insert a send fader it creates immediately a huge delay of 1900 (something) samples. (as you mentioned) When I address a return to the corresponding send, the delay comp is back to zero. This is not the behaviour of Logic, as Logic creates automatically the return. Issue solved

2. I added intentionally a UAD multi band limiter that creates a huge delay compensation. When I switch to Low latency mode, PT mutes the guilty plugin but it does not disable it. So the latency is still there. Logic would also disable automatically every plugin causing an ADC higher than the playback engine setting. Can I do that with PT?

[albee1952]

Originally Posted by danyg

2. I added intentionally a UAD multi band limiter that creates a huge delay compensation. When I switch to Low latency mode, PT mutes the guilty plugin but it does not disable it. So the latency is still there. Logic would also disable automatically every plugin causing an ADC higher than the playback engine setting. Can I do that with PT?

PT doesn't really do this(though its a good suggestion for ideascale), which makes UAD plugins impossible to track with, unless you use Apollo and the UA "Mixer". For me, while I have tons of plugins in my session templates, anything with more than 10 samples of latency is made inactive until mixing. I try to keep all the high-latency plugins in the same row of inserts so I can activate or deactivate a row with a single command