delay compensation

[john a]

Just some food for thought.
I have just finished mixing a couple of giant sessions, many many tracks and many plug ins, and I am pretty zonked by the effort of managing the delay compensation issue. Issues like- if I shift a track earlier to compensate (which in a 60+ track session seems to me the only way- you can't keep putting different dlas on every other track in the session) for a plug delay then I cant snap to bar and beat grid because the stuff is in the wrong place. When I used to work Cubase, or maybe it was logic, there was a track parameter called delay, which could be any = or - number. It was in the area to the left of the waveform overview, like where we see the input output pan, etc, parameters in ProTools. Why couldn't PT have a track delay setting (which could use negative numbers as well as positive) that would affect when the audio played from disk but not where the waveform was? PT already knows what the delay is, it would just have to do something with the info. It could be set to "auto" in which case when you put a plug on the track the audio was shifted that far forward, or manual (if you're bussing or something) where you would set the amount yourself. Seems pretty straightforward. Is it?

[PBerolz]

Sounds like a nice elegant way to implement something that many of us have wanted for a looooonnnnggggg time. (especially the "auto mode")

[snoopy]

There's a plugin for delay compensation. Having it built in to the mixer (which would be more convenient) would take up DSP anyways, so I guess using it as a plugin saves DSP(since you only use it on channels you need delayed and not all channels). But that's jsut my guess for it not being implemented yet.

[nozza1]

Brought up the same issue myself a couple of months back and the reaction on the DUC was positive. My suggestion like yours was for automatic predelay compensation within protools, displayed in the mix and edit windows so audio still aligns to bar beat markers but is played off the disc slightly ahead of its position in the timeline. Here's hoping digi add what would be a powerful, simple and much sought after feature soon. Getting more people to mix inside protools has to be digi's gameplan at this stage. Most people track, edit and overdub within protools sohelpl us close the circle.

[john a]

Any Digi folks around? What's the word- any such development in our foreseeable future
?

[Corey Shay]

It's gotta happen sometime. We've all made so much noise about it for years.

[klause]

the emagic guys have a function called delay-autocompensation , of course it´s only working with the vst plugs , because logic leaves all tdm handling to the dae . Maybe digi should ask them , how they did it ????? [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[jkilgore]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by snoopy:
There's a plugin for delay compensation. Having it built in to the mixer (which would be more convenient) would take up DSP anyways, so I guess using it as a plugin saves DSP(since you only use it on channels you need delayed and not all channels).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

My understanding of the way all DAWs work is that a file is read off the disk according to where region boundaries are located. A region boundary in the edit window is nothing more than a graphical representation of an instruction to play file A from sector K at time X. It seems to me that it would use no DSP at all to apply an offset based on the plug-in delay. We know already that this informaton is available on a cumulative, per-channel basis (Command click on the fader level to see the plug-in delay) Why not incorporate it as an automatically applied offset?

My $.02

JK

[Corey Shay]

To fully compensate for all delay occurring in the TDM domain you'd need more buffering which could potentially slow hard drive performance and affect maximum track count playback. It would be nice if any delays occuring even through aux sends and AD/DA would also be compensated for. Say for example I had an aux send from a snare track out 3 and 4 which I have patched to an external compressor unit. It would be nice if the return came back completely in phase. This could be accomplished through extra buffering, and for live inputs it could be accomplished by delaying the direct sound to compensate for the wet sound.

[Giulio]

Right, I understand that this thing would be difficult for aux sends, but I don't think it is for normal audio tracks. We've been asking for this function for years, and it's such an incredible thing how digi is ignoring this (I mean...they could at least say "sorry guys, it's not gonna happen"). But once again, as long as people buy their products, they're right and we're wrong.