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  #1  
Old 01-03-2020, 07:33 PM
lucidlife lucidlife is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2014
Location: st pete fl
Posts: 107
Default Latency issues with Mac mini

I had this issue a while ago, and thought I fixed it but it's back.
I'm having latency issues in my headphones when recording vox.
I tried all Buffer settings. At the lowest its sounds like my vocal is doubled. Empty session no plugins.
Delay compensation is off, and so is ignore playback errors.
I muted signal in console as well, and the cue is set to mix.

Before going through a fresh install of everything I went through the optimization guide by pt. I also downloaded a program that trashed prefs in pro tools. Nothing worked.

I'm not sure where to go from here lads. Any help is much needed since I use this to record clients. If this is happening I'll lose them.

Thanks!

Model Name: Mac mini server mid 2011
Processor Name: Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 2 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 4
2x 8GB DDR3 1600 MHz memory cards
Boot drive: 1Tb SSD
Server: 750 GB SATA Disk

Interface: Apollo Twin mk2



I did a fresh install of High Sierra.
The only things I have installed so far are:
Ilok license manager
UAD software
Pro tools 2019
Avid plugins
AIR plugins
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  #2  
Old 01-03-2020, 08:09 PM
Darryl Ramm Darryl Ramm is offline
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Default Re: Latency issues with Mac mini

What exactly is the “latency issue” you are having? Describe it And exactly what you are doing as best you can

What exact headphones? What tracks are you listening to while you record? “Sounds doubled” as in doubled with bleed through through open backed headphones? Or doubled like it sounds like two monitor signals in addition to any headphone bleed through (or in-head) sound?

If it is really latency then you should do some simple troubleshooting. What exactly is the latency you are hearing and how does that compare to the expected latency through The interface converters and Pro Tools IO buffer? Actually record (With no monitor/output path from that track) the mic and headphone output to another track and measure the latency at different buffer sizes.

But maybe most importantly telling us you have muted signals in console *and* selected cue mix is a little worrying. Telling us you have selected cue mix makes it seem like you might want to monitor through the console.... but we have no idea what you have set up to drive that cue. How about describing from one end to the other what exactly you are trying to do. What exactly are you trying to do... monitor through Pro Tools or the UAD console? If latency is really a problem then I would expect you to be monitoring through the console. If you are really hearing doubled signals (in addition to bleed through/in-head) then the first suspect should be you have monitoring improperly configured through both Pro Tools and the console.

Pick one and get it working. E.g. start with the console with no Pro Tools running and get monitoring working perfectly. Then and only then start Pro Tools and disable any software monitoring if needed.
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  #3  
Old 01-03-2020, 10:27 PM
lucidlife lucidlife is offline
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Default Re: Latency issues with Mac mini

Thank you for your reply!

What exactly is the “latency issue” you are having?

When I am hearing myself through my headphones I hear slight delay, like a flang, or a doubling to be more exact. That is on the lowest buffer setting. On the highest buffer settings it is very obvious, and more delay like.

I input monitor my record track,listen and test. when I speak I get the issues through my headphones. Recording there is no delay inputed onto the track, but when I speak that's when the issue occurs. I have tried with open back, and closed back headphones. I get the same results.

When I say doubled it sounds like there are 2 signals being sent. When I up the buffer settings it sounds more delayed maybe a second or so delay.


Now I should mention I was having CPU issues with a clients project where I couldn't even press play without running pt stopping to warn me about low cpu. I had to cancel the session. Nothing major either. My laptop handles theses session superbly but not my Mac mini.

But maybe most importantly telling us you have muted signals in console *and* selected cue mix is a little worrying. Telling us you have selected cue mix makes it seem like you might want to monitor through the console

To my understanding in order for me not to monitor through console I have to mute the track in console, and then I will only monitor through pro tools which is what I want. I set the cue outputs to mix so I can hear what I'm doing. These are in the set up guides in UAD website for if I set it to hp I will not be able to hear anything unless I route a headphone mix to console.

I opened console stand alone, and I get no latency. Sounds great.

I opened up pro tools, and I get the same result. Monitoring through pro tools I get the latency issue as before.

Thank you again for your reply.
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  #4  
Old 01-03-2020, 11:17 PM
Mark Ziebarth Mark Ziebarth is offline
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Default Re: Latency issues with Mac mini

Just a guess: You’re listening to what comes out of Pro Tools but should monitor what goes in.
AFAIK UAD software delivers an input monitoring with nearly zero latency.
The output of the recorded channel in Pro Tools could be an unused output or bus while recording.

Best

Mark
__________________
Mac Pro 2010 3.66 GHz six Cores, HD Native, 192 I/O, Avid Dock, Artist Mix and Pro Tools Ultimate
Mac mini 2018 i5 64 GB RAM, RME Fireface, Pro Tools 2021, Euphonix MC Control
MacBook Air 2020 (M1) 16 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD, Zoom U-44 and Pro Tools Ultimate
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  #5  
Old 01-04-2020, 12:38 AM
Darryl Ramm Darryl Ramm is offline
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Location: USA
Posts: 19,510
Default Re: Latency issues with Mac mini

Quote:
Originally Posted by lucidlife View Post
Thank you for your reply!

What exactly is the “latency issue” you are having?

When I am hearing myself through my headphones I hear slight delay, like a flang, or a doubling to be more exact. That is on the lowest buffer setting. On the highest buffer settings it is very obvious, and more delay like.

I input monitor my record track,listen and test. when I speak I get the issues through my headphones. Recording there is no delay inputed onto the track, but when I speak that's when the issue occurs. I have tried with open back, and closed back headphones. I get the same results.

When I say doubled it sounds like there are 2 signals being sent. When I up the buffer settings it sounds more delayed maybe a second or so delay.


Now I should mention I was having CPU issues with a clients project where I couldn't even press play without running pt stopping to warn me about low cpu. I had to cancel the session. Nothing major either. My laptop handles theses session superbly but not my Mac mini.

But maybe most importantly telling us you have muted signals in console *and* selected cue mix is a little worrying. Telling us you have selected cue mix makes it seem like you might want to monitor through the console

To my understanding in order for me not to monitor through console I have to mute the track in console, and then I will only monitor through pro tools which is what I want. I set the cue outputs to mix so I can hear what I'm doing. These are in the set up guides in UAD website for if I set it to hp I will not be able to hear anything unless I route a headphone mix to console.

I opened console stand alone, and I get no latency. Sounds great.

I opened up pro tools, and I get the same result. Monitoring through pro tools I get the latency issue as before.

Thank you again for your reply.
OK so you just have both the UAD Console and Pro Tools monitoring. You need one not both.

But since I assume you are OK with monitoring through the Console just disable track input monitoring on the tracks you are recording. (uncheck the green "i" button on the track in Pro Tools).

This is "basic" stuff that lots of people still have problems with, so spend time playing with monitoring, learning how the console monitoring works, and separately how to control software monitoring in Pro Tools.

And nothing here is actually a "latency" issue. You will have very low latency via the console monitoring, and if you can live with hardware monitoring you can set the IO buffer to large values (the latency that would cause no longer matters to your monitoring) and that gives you better Pro Tools stability.
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  #6  
Old 01-04-2020, 01:46 PM
lucidlife lucidlife is offline
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Location: st pete fl
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Default Re: Latency issues with Mac mini

Quote:
Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm View Post
OK so you just have both the UAD Console and Pro Tools monitoring. You need one not both.

But since I assume you are OK with monitoring through the Console just disable track input monitoring on the tracks you are recording. (uncheck the green "i" button on the track in Pro Tools).

This is "basic" stuff that lots of people still have problems with, so spend time playing with monitoring, learning how the console monitoring works, and separately how to control software monitoring in Pro Tools.

And nothing here is actually a "latency" issue. You will have very low latency via the console monitoring, and if you can live with hardware monitoring you can set the IO buffer to large values (the latency that would cause no longer matters to your monitoring) and that gives you better Pro Tools stability.
Hey Darrell thanks for your reply. I am actually muting the record track in console when I am input monitoring through pro tools. Reason being is that I have plugins that I don't have for UAD, so when recording the artist he/she can hear those effects applied.

But it seems like I may just have to buy a few plugins from UAD and monitor through console, since the latency issue is non existent. I was thinking about getting another interface and testing that out to see if it's the apollo causing the issues.

Thanks again.
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  #7  
Old 01-04-2020, 05:51 PM
Sardi Sardi is offline
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Default Latency issues with Mac mini

Quote:
Originally Posted by lucidlife View Post
Hey Darrell thanks for your reply. I am actually muting the record track in console when I am input monitoring through pro tools. Reason being is that I have plugins that I don't have for UAD, so when recording the artist he/she can hear those effects applied.

But it seems like I may just have to buy a few plugins from UAD and monitor through console, since the latency issue is non existent. I was thinking about getting another interface and testing that out to see if it's the apollo causing the issues.

Thanks again.

Well you may have just found the cause of your problem.

What are these plugins you’re instantiating on the vocal channel? They could be adding anywhere from a few samples delay to hundreds or thousands of samples of extra delay.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Last edited by Sardi; 01-04-2020 at 06:44 PM.
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  #8  
Old 01-04-2020, 07:36 PM
Darryl Ramm Darryl Ramm is offline
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Default Re: Latency issues with Mac mini

Quote:
Originally Posted by lucidlife View Post
Hey Darrell thanks for your reply. I am actually muting the record track in console when I am input monitoring through pro tools. Reason being is that I have plugins that I don't have for UAD, so when recording the artist he/she can hear those effects applied.

But it seems like I may just have to buy a few plugins from UAD and monitor through console, since the latency issue is non existent. I was thinking about getting another interface and testing that out to see if it's the apollo causing the issues.

Thanks again.
The Apollo is not causing any issues, to put it bluntly, the "issues" here are just you needing to understand what is going on.

You don't need to use a different interface to test anything. All this *will* make sense if you work though what is going on. As Sardi points out, now that you have told us you are software monitoring though plugins... that plugin latency in Pro Tools is an obvious suspect... so what is the exact expected latency of the plugin(s) (at your sample rate,... the vendor should clearly document this). As I suggested before just measure what is going on... and see if it makes sense. You have a DAW in front of you that can measure delays to very high precision by recording the input and monitor return to another track.

If you don't need to use the very specific Pro Tools plugins then yes use a UAD plugin. But be careful, not all UAD plugins are low/no latency, you have to understand that, all well documented in the UAD software documentation.

Again, understand and calculate what delay is expected and measure. Then you will really know you have this understood.
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  #9  
Old 01-09-2020, 05:28 PM
lucidlife lucidlife is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2014
Location: st pete fl
Posts: 107
Default Re: Latency issues with Mac mini

Quote:
Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm View Post
The Apollo is not causing any issues, to put it bluntly, the "issues" here are just you needing to understand what is going on.

You don't need to use a different interface to test anything. All this *will* make sense if you work though what is going on. As Sardi points out, now that you have told us you are software monitoring though plugins... that plugin latency in Pro Tools is an obvious suspect... so what is the exact expected latency of the plugin(s) (at your sample rate,... the vendor should clearly document this). As I suggested before just measure what is going on... and see if it makes sense. You have a DAW in front of you that can measure delays to very high precision by recording the input and monitor return to another track.

If you don't need to use the very specific Pro Tools plugins then yes use a UAD plugin. But be careful, not all UAD plugins are low/no latency, you have to understand that, all well documented in the UAD software documentation.

Again, understand and calculate what delay is expected and measure. Then you will really know you have this understood.
Sorry for the misunderstanding, so I'm actually opening the session with no plugins. It's a blank session, and I'm still getting latency even at the lowest setting. It's small but noticeable. What I was saying is that the plugins I do use normally in my template I don't have for UAD, so I would need to monitor through PT, and not Console.


I don't get this issue with my 2014 1 tb ssd 16 gig memory laptop. I'm not sure what's going on or what I'm doing wrong.

I''ll read back about the test you mentioned. Would you mind explaining it further though? It was a lil confusing for me. Thanks, and thanks for the help!! Really appreciate it!

Last edited by lucidlife; 01-09-2020 at 06:09 PM.
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  #10  
Old 01-09-2020, 05:33 PM
lucidlife lucidlife is offline
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Default Re: Latency issues with Mac mini

Quote:
Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm View Post
Actually record (With no monitor/output path from that track) the mic and headphone output to another track and measure the latency at different buffer sizes.
I'm not understanding. Could you explain this further? '

I'm not sure how I would record the headphone output.
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