Automation timing issue

[WildHoney]

I feel like I should understand this already, but. . . .

Recently, I've been doing a lot of real-time riding of faders, often times late in a music mix, and I'm seeing that the automation points get written to the track LATE. Sometimes VERY late. That is, I've got a track in Touch mode, the song is playing back, I push the fader up on beat 9 and down on beat 10, but ProTools prints these moves just after beat 9 and just after beat 10. Sometimes it's been off by as much as a 16th note (that happened today in a song at about 138 bpm). In fact, today, as the track was running and I was riding the fader, I'm pretty sure I saw PT recording the automation moves accurately, but as soon as I pressed stop, all the automation jumped back (late) and then was printed in that late position and played back late.
The bulk of the time I write automation in via mouse, but lately have been using the C24 more. So, am I missing some basic info on how automation works? Or is this a bug? Or is this just the way it works and if so, whats the workaround?

PT 9.0.6
OS 10.7
Mac Pro 2012, 20GB RAM

[WildHoney]

well, I gotta say I'm a bit worried that nobody's had any insight into this -- making me think there may be some issue with my system or my template or my workflow. For further clarification, I just ran a test on a session with one stereo audio track routed directly to to physical outputs. Recorded volume automation so that beats 2 and 4 of each bar were silent -- no transient showing through on beats 2 and 4. Now, if I record that same automation with a Waves Linear Phase EQ on the track (2679 samples of delay), the automation is visibly and audibly printing LATE. That is, as I'm moving the fader during the automation recording, beats 2 and 4 are silent. As soon as I play back that automation, the front end of beats 2 and 4 are audible. And, as I said, you can see the actual automation points printing late in the edit window.
So, it seems this has something to do with delay compensation, but I'm just not sure WHAT! If this clarifies the issue for anyone, please let me know your thoughts.
Should I be making automation moves with Delay Compensation turned OFF? If so, how does that work when tweaking automation moves deep into a mix when theres A LOT of compensation going?

[WildHoney]

Here is another user who posted a video showing the exact same behavior I've described.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfTN-60QtyM

Avid support, PLEASE chime in on this!

[WildHoney]

And here's a post in the ProTools 10 forum describing the same behavior. Clearly, not limited to ProTools 10 as I'm on 9.0.6:
http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?p...44#post1964144

[WildHoney]

Just been google searching the forum and have found reports of this going back at least 6 years. Not one comment from Avid in any of the threads I've seen so far. If you record any automation via fader rides, you NEED to know this. Why it has not been addressed after all this time is beyond me -- and shameful, in my opinion.

[studiojimi]

delay compenstation?

[WildHoney]

Originally Posted by studiojimi

delay compenstation?

Seems certainly to be ADC-related. The question is why. And how to fix. Could it really be that the industry leading DAW is unable to write fader automation in time?

[Brandonx1]

Originally Posted by WildHoney

Seems certainly to be ADC-related. The question is why. And how to fix. Could it really be that the industry leading DAW is unable to write fader automation in time?

All fader automation is like that. On every DAW. You would have to travel into the future to write fader automation in real time with ADC on. The trick is to keep your delay very low. I don't think their is anyway anyone on the planet can feel anything under 1000 samples. Most of my sessions have about 300 samples ADC. It feels like real time to me.

Best,
Brandon

[WildHoney]

Originally Posted by Brandonx1

All fader automation is like that. On every DAW. You would have to travel into the future to write fader automation in real time with ADC on. The trick is to keep your delay very low. I don't think their is anyway anyone on the planet can feel anything under 1000 samples. Most of my sessions have about 300 samples ADC. It feels like real time to me.

Best,
Brandon

Well, if you read the other posts, it seems there is at least one person using a Euphonix controller w/ Nuendo w/o the problem. I haven't verified that though, being that I'm on ProTools. http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=294891
Regardless, I'm not sure why you claim you'd have to travel into the future to write fader automation in real time with ADC. Strikes me that the same nudge that I can do based on total system delay, ProTools could do as soon as I press stop. Sounds like one line of code to my thoroughly non-programmer mind. If total system delay is 1500 samples, PT should automatically shift any real time automation earlier by 1500 samples when the pass is completed. Now we're reading back the fader move in proper time. No?

[studiojimi]

Originally Posted by WildHoney

Seems certainly to be ADC-related. The question is why. And how to fix. Could it really be that the industry leading DAW is unable to write fader automation in time?

does it "look" wrong or "sound" wrong?

or both?



another thought

a lot of TOP cast automate with the dot instead of using a fader