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  #11  
Old 01-04-2022, 02:54 AM
LFO LFO is offline
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Default Re: Dealing with external ADAT converter latency

I'm using Carbon since one year now with external preamps going in Carbon's ADAT. There may be a very very slight delay due to converters, I didn't feel to check out... anyway recording acoustic instruments including drums there is no audible latency at all, no difference from the Carbon's preamps.It's the best system I ever had and I had a full TDM system.
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  #12  
Old 01-05-2022, 03:33 PM
Phil O'Keefe Phil O'Keefe is offline
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Default Re: Dealing with external ADAT converter latency

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Originally Posted by albee1952 View Post
I'm curious, are you thinking there is an issue when there really isn't? Every converter has latency and all will be very close, given the same buffer setting. Any difference is likely to be not more than a few dozen samples(read inches in the real world).
According to my math and measurements, the latency of the ADAT converter is 64.386 (65) samples @ 44.1 kHz, or 1.46 ms.

Quote:
So, I can see how this would matter if you put one overhead mic thru the Carbon preamp and another overhead thru an external(something I would never do, but for completely different reasons than possible converter latency). What exactly are you doing where it presents an audible problem?
Well, I'm not crazy enough to run one of my overheads through one converter and the other through a different converter, but I often like to use more than 8 channels for drums. Here's what I was planning on running for most basic tracking sessions for bands:

Kick 1: RE20 > Neve 8801 > ADAT
Snare: 5790 > Radial EQ > API 312 > ADAT
Toms 1-3: Audix D2 (x2) and D4 > API 312 > ADAT
Overheads: WA84 (x2) Vintech Dual 72 > Aphex Comps > Orban EQs > ADAT

That's seven out of eight channels. The 8th ADAT input channel is used for either a GT Brick + RNLA for bass DI, or bass into a dbx 676 > ADAT for the same purpose.

That leaves me with three, or sometimes four additional drum mics, which are plugged into the Carbon mic preamps:

Kick 2: Yamaha Subkick > Carbon
Hi Hat: A/T 450 > Carbon
Room (mono or stereo) - Soundelux ELUX 251 (x1 or x2) > UREI comps > Carbon

Toss in a couple of guitar tracks, a mono or stereo keyboard track, and a scratch vocal - all going into Carbon - and that's my typical setup for laying down basic tracks.

Carbon is replacing a 32 x 32 I/O HD3 Accel rig that I have been using for about 15 years... so in the past, my I/O was literally all on Digidesign converters, and everything had the exact same latency. It's not all on the same converters anymore with the Carbon setup. I know how to nudge, and will do so in order to get the kicks and room mics aligned with the ADAT tracks if I have to - I was just wondering if anything had changed in terms of best practices in the latest version of Pro Tools Ultimate - I've been on PTHD 10 for so long now, I'm not up to speed yet on the latest software version. That's why I was asking.
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  #13  
Old 01-05-2022, 03:44 PM
Phil O'Keefe Phil O'Keefe is offline
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Default Re: Dealing with external ADAT converter latency

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Originally Posted by JFreak View Post
Yes!

People really don't understand that in the olden days of blazing fast TDM systems the real world mixer had roughly 350 samples of plugin latency, and somehow artists had zero trouble monitor themselves through it. But now they complain about 64 buffer and demand 32. Sheesh...
Monitoring latency was never an issue for me or my clients with my TDM setup. Also, I never used plugins when tracking with that system. I typically used hardware processors "going in" and hardware reverbs and an external mixer for monitoring while tracking. That may change to some degree with Carbon (I'm planning on doing away with the mixer for sure if I can), but I'm not complaining about Carbon's available buffer settings. I'm still testing everything before I feel comfortable enough with using the new setup with clients, but so far, even with tons of plugins, the Mac mini M1 has zero problems running test sessions with the 32 sample buffer setting.
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  #14  
Old 01-05-2022, 04:26 PM
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abc1mce2 abc1mce2 is offline
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Default Re: Dealing with external ADAT converter latency

To my understanding, the buffer size is no longer an issue with recording in Hybrid mode. You can leave it set at 1024 or at least I thought unless there's something I'm missing I wasn't informed on from one of Avid's Carbon videos.
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  #15  
Old 01-05-2022, 05:12 PM
Phil O'Keefe Phil O'Keefe is offline
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Default Re: Dealing with external ADAT converter latency

Quote:
Originally Posted by abc1mce2 View Post
To my understanding, the buffer size is no longer an issue with recording in Hybrid mode. You can leave it set at 1024 or at least I thought unless there's something I'm missing I wasn't informed on from one of Avid's Carbon videos.
Two words: Virtual instruments.

VI's need to be recorded with the lowest buffer size the system can reliably support in order to get the system's lowest possible latency while doing so. All the DSP in the world won't help a bit if you're trying to record a VI that's running natively on the computer's CPU.

While I have several hardware keyboards and my clients often use their own, sometimes people want to run through a VI while recording basic tracks, so the 32 sample buffer stability of Carbon while running at 44.1 kHz on a Mac mini M1 is definitely something I can appreciate.
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  #16  
Old 01-21-2022, 10:56 AM
GroovnD313 GroovnD313 is offline
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Default Re: Dealing with external ADAT converter latency

Quote:
Originally Posted by abc1mce2 View Post
To my understanding, the buffer size is no longer an issue with recording in Hybrid mode. You can leave it set at 1024 or at least I thought unless there's something I'm missing I wasn't informed on from one of Avid's Carbon videos.
Yes it's not really an issue anymore. I was working with Avid to hammer this out. I run huge pop sessions, tons of plugins and recording as fast as you can humanly move. I was experiencing lags after hitting record in quick succession on any buffer besides 128. Thats been fixed in PT 2021.10. For whatever reason my system is the snappiest on 256 so since the buffer/latency is not an issue I usually leave it parked there while tracking.
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  #17  
Old 02-21-2022, 10:50 PM
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Matt Hepworth Matt Hepworth is offline
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Default Re: Dealing with external ADAT converter latency

Hey, Phil!

I also went Carbon from a 32 I/O Accel rig. Been rough.

Offset with a negative number in the PT mixer view is the simple solution. Since Carbon doesn't have delay compensation on inputs for monitoring during tracking, the other simple option is to have all 8 Carbon inputs bussed to an aux and using Time Adjuster to delay them to match whatever the offset is (a simple mult recorded to both Carbon and ADAT at once will give you that offset).

Feel free to reach out directly if you need anything!
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  #18  
Old 02-23-2022, 07:44 AM
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JDubz70 JDubz70 is offline
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Default Re: Dealing with external ADAT converter latency

Hi Phil,

Have you tried turning off Auto Low-Latency in Pro Tools (Blue Mode)?

Here's a good article describing it:

https://www.puremix.net/blog/underst...pensation.html

[I]Pro Tools has a feature called "Auto Low Latency" that is usually ON by default. The idea behind this is that, if you put an audio track in input monitoring and/or recording mode, you will want to record something to it. And if this happens from a real source (e.g. your guitar player needs to record an overdub), Pro Tools assumes you will want the least possible latency to make sure the guitar player can hear what she's playing (yes, she) in time with her performance. "Auto Low Latency" makes sure that the Automatic Delay Compensation rule is broken for tracks that are put in input monitoring and/or arm record mode (green "I" or red dot turned on).

Most of the time this is what you want (especially if the session has lots of plug-ins already) but in this case we don't. We might use this technique to bounce a track into another, and it's paramount that ADC is maintained so we can monitor correctly and commit to the print.

To fix this, we head over to the "delay compensation" pane, at the bottom of that audio track (make sure you have "Delay Compensation" turned on in the "View > Mix Window" menu, to see it). The three fields indicate, from top to bottom:

the total delay, in samples, of that track
the user offset, in samples, of that track (if any)
the total compensation, in samples, of that track, required to equal the delay of the slowest track in the session

normally these fields are all green, but in Pro Tools they can be orange to highlight the slowest track in the session. If they are red, it means the track is not being compensated correctly. Each DAW has a maximum of samples it can compensate.

To turn off "Auto Low Latency" mode for a given track, we right-click on the third, lowest-field of the Delay Compensation Pane, then click on "Auto Low Latency OFF". The compensation field will now look blue to let you know that Low Latency mode is disabled for that track.


Best,

John Whitcore
Sr. Principal Product Manager - Pro Tools Hardware
[email protected]
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  #19  
Old 02-23-2022, 08:03 AM
its2loud its2loud is offline
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Default Re: Dealing with external ADAT converter latency

Isn’t there a keyboard shortcut for this as well?
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