Carbon with external ADC line input latency

[langa101]

Hello All,

I have a quick question. If I use the Carbon with an external Analog to Digital converter to ADAT in or DB25 XLR in.

Does this cause delays in processing if tracking ? since HDX has .75 ms of latency when engaged at 96KHZ could I skip this part because I have an ADC that can process input to output in .4 ms ?

Basically do line inputs cause latency on their own ? and also ADAT inputs.

I ask because on the MTRX there are 5 samples for digital in and out and 7 samples of system latency or 8 samples total for digital meaning (0.167 48KHZ
and 0.083 at 96KHZ) meaning using HDX would cause almost 10 fold latency then just recording into the MTRX via AES in for example.

Am I thinking about this in the correct manner. Thanks.

[Darryl Ramm]

Line input used the same ADC and digital processing as the mic inputs so will have identical latency.

External ADAT mic preamps are responsible for some of the overall conversion process but there is still additional overhead in the Carbon. You mic/line analog inputs are unlikely to align perfectly with ADAT inputs.(e.g. see https://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=418413)

You are talking about routing latencies in MTRX, a MTRX has to get to the DAW comptuer, so you either have an additional amoutn for HDX

What is the actual problem you are trying to solve?

[langa101]

I see makes sense regarding line / mic inputs using the same ADC architecture.

The issue I'm trying to weigh is although Protools has HDX the plugins cause additional latency of 10 samples+ which defeats the purpose in my opinion.

At 10 samples / 96KHZ this is 0.104 per-plugin and will add up fast but I have native plugins such as McDSP which are 0 samples in latency.

So not going to get into the whole debate of HDX/Carbon vs. Native. I'm simply trying to weight the option of investing in an external ADC and push most of the processing to it vs. in the box in Protools ?

I have also looked at the MTRX but it appears the fundamental issue will still be at hand.

As I stated prior if 5 samples via digital in MTRX were true I'm literally better off using an external ADC since the system adds I believe 650 microseconds just on A/D side of things.

You stated MTRX is for routing latency and kind of confused based on what they have in the manual. So to make a long story short....

External ADC into AES in = how much latency in MTRX ? and monitoring send via AES ?

External ADC into line input in Carbon = how much latency and monitoring path ?

Can't really get concrete numbers online. So basically should I invest in a better front end and bypass Avid conversion and still use HDX engine via Line inputs ? So confused right now but can't make an informed decision without numbers I guess. Appreciate the assistance on this.