AAX DSP / Plugin-Alliance question

[Stephen Bond]

Originally Posted by JFreak

Here's what I don't understand so please someone explain to me.

How come SoundGrid latency of 2ms (AD/DA) plus 4ms (SG coreaudio driver), or total of 288 samples at 48kHz session is low enough, but 128 or 256 sample latency is not okay on a PT system? And as I have understood SG latency comes on top of your audio interface latency so they combined have even more latency?

Good luck running SG at 32 or 64 samples when the SG AD/DA itself takes more than that.

But maybe I am wrong as always...

I'm not running an SG interface, just the Mobile Server. With a Waves audio interface you can get low latency. I'd get one but they are pretty quirky and not exactly cheap so I am using Focusrite interefaces I have.

Latency wise, if I am using heaphones from the main mix I just switch any plug-ins on the record channel and master to Native from SG to avoid the extra roundtrip when it comes to recording. As low as I have the AAE buffer at 256 or less I am happy enough. The thing is to avoid any plug-ins with high roundtrip sample values on those channels. Pretty much 95&% of the plug-ins I have are issue free. It is just a such as the Waves LinMB and such which are problematic so are best reserved for the mix only.

Stephen

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by Stephen Bond

As low as I have the AAE buffer at 256 or less I am happy enough. The thing is to avoid any plug-ins with high roundtrip sample values on those channels. Pretty much 95&% of the plug-ins I have are issue free.

Yea, thanks for this. I have been trying to tell this exactly same message since 2002, but people do not listen to math. Artists listen to feelings and sometimes one sample of latency is too much, so they demand analog monitoring. That's the point where I walk out of the room.

[simon.a.billington]

Originally Posted by Stephen Bond

I'm not running an SG interface, just the Mobile Server. With a Waves audio interface you can get low latency. I'd get one but they are pretty quirky and not exactly cheap so I am using Focusrite interefaces I have.

Latency wise, if I am using heaphones from the main mix I just switch any plug-ins on the record channel and master to Native from SG to avoid the extra roundtrip when it comes to recording. As low as I have the AAE buffer at 256 or less I am happy enough. The thing is to avoid any plug-ins with high roundtrip sample values on those channels. Pretty much 95&% of the plug-ins I have are issue free. It is just a such as the Waves LinMB and such which are problematic so are best reserved for the mix only.

Stephen

Yeah there would be a good reason for this as a linear phase eq will always induce latency which is owning to how much data the algorithms need to work. Basically, the calculations just can't be done with the small amount of data you get from an IO Buffer of 256 for example, it requires a much larger subset... hence the latency.

This will be the case for alot of other latency inducing plugins. There is another scenario though, and thats when over sampling is introduced to avoid aliasing. There is a small amount of latency inherent in oversampling. If that becomes a problem just switch the HD mode off in Waves plugins while tracking.