2022.7 MIDI Delay Compensation Bug?

[lesbrunn]

Hey guys, especially MIDI users,

We all saw the midi bugs in 22.6/22.7. I had rolled back to 22.5 because of this, but after reading some posts from take77, I went back to 22.7. When those things happen it's easy enough to switch to sample mode, which enables you to edit midi data.

A few words of introduction... I've used midi since it was invented, and have used PT for more than 20 years.

Yesterday, though, I was sent an audio-only session to which I had to add midi programming. The session was recorded without a click. This is something I do all the time, so I set up a tempo map. I then imported an old track preset starter that I almost always use (SSD Sampler 5 with mixer/output routing into PT). Buffer 64, midi preference -64. There was unusable latency. I also imported an xpand 2 track preset into the session (I always use that to check against 3rd party VIs), but that responded perfectly.

After battling for at least a couple of hours with the usual suspects (preference trash, IO check, refreshing Windows files via SFC, then DISM, reinstalling SSD5 then PT, importing tracks one at a time into a new session), the only solution was to disable delay compensation. That worked, but I didn't like it. Rolling back to 22.5 brought me normal PT behaviour.

Midi troubles in 22.6/22.7 seem to be much deeper than just being unable to edit midi. Has anyone else seen this? Any insight would be most welcome. Thanks.

[XJENSEN]

Yes, and timing of recorded MIDI events is still off, 12 years after being initially reported. I suspect they need to further iron out their delay compensation engine, and maybe more.

[lesbrunn]

Sorry, my info wasn't accurate. The issue is not with 22.7, because I was able to reproduce it in 22.5. What caused it was that I had a pitch plugin (Elastique Pitch V2) inserted on 3 audio tracks because I wanted to experiment with different keys. With the plugin disabled, SSD5 works as expected. Enabled, SSD5 is unusable. But xpand, Battery, and a few other VIs I tested work normally. In other words, the combination of EP V2 and SSD5 produces unusable latency. Why does this happen only with SSD5?

My workaround was to commit the audio, but that isn't flexible because I can't experiment with different keys on the fly.

Can anyone shed any light on this? This is an exact workflow I have used successfully before in previous versions of PT. The problem only seems to happen in the 2022 versions. Any solutions would be welcome. Thanks.

[albee1952]

Just some general info to consider here. Latency can be caused by several things, such as:
1-plugin latency on any or all tracks(remember that ADC works by making everything LATER to match the track with the highest plugin latency)
2-How you monitor, because if you are listening to the main mix and you have plugins on the master track, those plugins may still add latency, AND, they are not compensated for(because in a mix, they don't need to be)
3-playback buffer setting(running this as low as possible is the best plan). Now a 64 setting(usually fine) may not be possible on a large mix, so you need to get creative. This might mean bouncing everything to a 2-mix and adding overdubs to that(with the rest of the session temporarily made inactive), or it might mean freezing several tracks to free up horsepower(but I recommend unfreezing BEFORE you close the session)
4-a "wild card"; if you have a send on your record track that has no destination, that can confuse ADC and cause almost 2000 samples of unwanted compensation. How might this happen? Lets say you added a send to an AUX track for an effect, but changed your mind and deleted the AUX track. That send is now "orphaned

Hope something here helps

[lesbrunn]

Originally Posted by albee1952

Just some general info to consider here. Latency can be caused by several things, such as:
1-plugin latency on any or all tracks(remember that ADC works by making everything LATER to match the track with the highest plugin latency)
2-How you monitor, because if you are listening to the main mix and you have plugins on the master track, those plugins may still add latency, AND, they are not compensated for(because in a mix, they don't need to be)
3-playback buffer setting(running this as low as possible is the best plan). Now a 64 setting(usually fine) may not be possible on a large mix, so you need to get creative. This might mean bouncing everything to a 2-mix and adding overdubs to that(with the rest of the session temporarily made inactive), or it might mean freezing several tracks to free up horsepower(but I recommend unfreezing BEFORE you close the session)
4-a "wild card"; if you have a send on your record track that has no destination, that can confuse ADC and cause almost 2000 samples of unwanted compensation. How might this happen? Lets say you added a send to an AUX track for an effect, but changed your mind and deleted the AUX track. That send is now "orphaned

Hope something here helps

Hey Dave, thanks for your helpful response. I'm aware of most of this, but not all.

2. All my 2 bus plugins were disabled.

3. I was working with 64, within a very small session. I had only 5 stereo audio tracks of which I had 3 instances of the pitch plugin inserted. My system is powerful enough to run at 64 on fairly large sessions, usually with little or no MIDI latency (plugin dependent). On very large sessions, I always bounce down to stereo for overdubs, especially with hungry VIs. Freezing works, but a rough stereo mix is much better because you have so much more power in reserve.

4. No 'wild cards'. I'm careful about that. I know multiple outputs can introduce latency (though I do that many times without problems). I think it all depends on the plugins, and I always adjust when necessary.

Even with 3 instances of EP V2, there is no noticeable latency on anything except SSD5. I've heard of guys manually editing latency values, but I've never had to do that, so I haven't paid much attention. I think that would probably work in a purely mix situation, not with live midi instruments. In the past, though, I've sometimes had to edit minus digits into the event editor to solve certain issues.

Does it look like the problem is with SSD5? By itself, I've never had latency issues, but it looks like it doesn't like Elastique Pitch of late. But this is something I did successfully in 2020.12. What do you think?

[drummerjesse]

Not sure if this is the right thread to post this in but I've got quite a unique problem that I can't seem to solve after spending hours troubleshooting. I can not find anything online about it either.


The issue I'm having seems to be a UI bug where Pro Tools will start lagging once I have maybe 30 secs or so of MIDI recording. Playback is completely fine I could have 50+ tracks playing back with no issue. I'm using MIDI merge to overdub the notes so I can make a complete drum track without having multiple instances of Kontakt loaded on 8+ instrument tracks. There is no issue with input delay or anything like that it's solely the UI that starts to "lag" once enough notes are recorded but then playback is fine. Never had any issues at all with Pro Tools for over 10 years. Another thing is I demoed Cubase 12 Pro and had no issues whatsoever doing the exact same thing I am trying to do in Pro Tools so that's why I don't think it's anything hardware related and seems like some sort of UI bug or something. I'm using a basic MIDI keyboard with a MIDI cable into the "MIDI IN" on my interface. I've tried reinstalling multiple times, checking my registry for errors and I'm completely at a loss on how to fix this.