Plug in Latency

[reverieman]

I just read my first post about Plug in Latency. I had no idea. I feel dumb. Can someone please tell me what this is? I am sure it is affecting my recordings, because eventually nothing lines up... things that were in phase go out of phase... lets start with how, and when this happens... or where I can read more about it..? You guys really make this a lot easier thanx.

[will the moor]

rever, try searching the forum with the term: plugin +latency. be sure to use the plus sign right up next to latency and change your range to 1 year. lots of good info on here already.


Will

[reverieman]

I searched that way, and I must have looked through about 100 listings... did not have any on the subject. Is there any links, or books I can buy? I thought we were crazy, but now it makes sense.

[smc47]

How can I record while plug-ins are on without having latency problems? When recording, plug-ins are automatically shut off. If I shut off the 'low latency' drop down menu so that the plug-ins work while recording, the instrument I'm recording goes out of sync with the tracks already recorded. I set up Windows according to the getting started guide as well as using several of the extra measures one can take to 'maximize performance,' but still can't eliminate this disorienting delay while recording. Please help.

[JonnyGinese]

SMC, If you have your buffer at something liek 1024 then you are goign to get a slap back kinda latency even without plugins on. If you lower your buffer to something liek 64 or 128 you won't tell a difference. Unless you have a plugin or synth that is really big and that you need to offset anyways. But if you are just playing your guitar and trying to monitor it and record it lowering the buffer would work.

Record at low buffer, Mix at high buffer.

Jonny

P.S. I never use low latency monitoring.. I record all my tracks at 128 and have plugins on everything as a template. And i never have a problem or any delay problems. I use mostly the standard Digi plugins that don't add latency though. But then again.. even Guitar Rig doesn't add latency and thats a huge plugin.

[smc47]

Thanks for you help Jonny, lowering the amount of buffer did help. Unfortunately, even with the buffer at its lowest setting I'm still hearing a disorienting delay. I did notice that when I accidentally removed one side of the headphones from my left ear, the delay was much less pronounced. Maybe this was simply due to the fact that I could hear the pick on the strings acoustically in the room with my left ear--not sure. At any rate, I'm stilling bugging out with the lack of accurate tracking (too much latency) in PTLE. Seeing that Jonny isn't experiencing any problems with this, does anyone else have any suggestions? Help!

[lode]

Best way I found is to split the signal you are recording before it hits PT and use a mixer to blend what you are playing/singing to with the direct signal. Make sure to mute what you are recording.

I use Focusrite Twintrak Pro (Mic Preamp) which has a small monitor mixer built in so I can mix playback with the directsignal. Recommended.

[JonnyGinese]

Wait a second.... Are you using an Mbox? Because that is way different then my Digi002r I'm using. The Mbox if im not mistaken... you shoudl have the buffer low liek i said before, but also on the front of the mbox you need to adjust that mix knob it has.. which will mix in the audio coming straight into the mic ports. I don't think that the Mbox has a way to have no "slap back" latency for monitoring. Look and see if I'm right on this.. it might be on the Mbox2 as well. But I know that USB has alot more latency then Firewire. I think when my Digi002r is at 64buff the system has about 2ms latency and then the firewire adds a littel bit more. But I can't hear anything latency unless my buffer is above 128. 256 i start to hear a little bit of a doubling effect. But it coudl all depend on the player. Like i said before that i have a digi002r and its different. But I had a guitarist over last night going through sounds on Guitar Rig and i switched it from 64buff to 1024buff and he couldnt tell a difference. heh heh. Although when "I" play i deffinatly can tell a difference. All that aside. If you DO have a digi002r or 002 or 001.. and you are still getting latency. You must have some sort of plugin that adds latency. Like a Waves L3 Ultimaximizer or something. Because I don't think taht any of the standard Digi plugins have any latency... or nto that i cna hear anyways.

[reverieman]

Guys,
I was not referring to a problem of latency when recording, but the latency you recieve when you add plug ins post recording, during the mixing phase. Do digidesign plug ins have no latency? I dont know anything about it, only what my ears tell me. We play to a click it is all very tight, but when we start to use some plug ins example... gate EQ Reverb Delay then the snare might seem just a tad off... Not "as tight", but if you bypass all of them it is dead on? Is there any way around this?