Question regarding both HDX and Carbon

[Matt Hepworth]

Originally Posted by nst7

Albee, I'm aware that native plugins will not run at the near zero latency.

What I'm trying to determine is if I'd be no worse off, latency wise, with native plugins, with Carbon vs. the typical interface at a low buffer. Some things people have mentioned about Carbon lead me to believe it may actually be worse, latency wise, in native mode. That's what I'm trying to ascertain. I think someone also mentioned that the MTRX Studio was also not great for native latency.

Yes, worse than a regular interface for native. That's the case for both HDX and Carbon. That's just not their focus.

UAD is a middle ground there. Not the fastest native performance, but solid.

Go Quantum or RME if native is your focus.

[digiot]

Originally Posted by Matt Hepworth

Yes, worse than a regular interface for native. That's the case for both HDX and Carbon. That's just not their focus.

UAD is a middle ground there. Not the fastest native performance, but solid.

Go Quantum or RME if native is your focus.

Not following what you are saying. The only time latency is an issue on native systems is when live tracking. With the Hybrid engine that is taken care of.
VI’s have a much lower latency then live inputs. You don’t need to run VI’s at super low buffers (64 or lower)to not perceive latency.
RME and Quantum are solid on low buffers but still not as solid as HDX/Carbon.
As for UAD, if you are fine with rerouting everything through their 3rd party mixer just so you can track with no latency then cudos to you.Their workflow is horrible not even counting their lackluster DSP. I love their plug-ins but unless you have tons of their DSP chips they are not usable in a full mix.

[glennaudio]

Originally Posted by LFO

HD Native Thunderbolt is not better than the PCIe card, same performance.It's the same card in a thunderbolt box for computers lacking PCIe slots.

got it. thanks for this. I always wondered if there was a difference.

[albee1952]

Originally Posted by nst7

Albee, I'm aware that native plugins will not run at the near zero latency.

What I'm trying to determine is if I'd be no worse off, latency wise, with native plugins, with Carbon vs. the typical interface at a low buffer. Some things people have mentioned about Carbon lead me to believe it may actually be worse, latency wise, in native mode. That's what I'm trying to ascertain. I think someone also mentioned that the MTRX Studio was also not great for native latency.

Well, from my own experience on a friend's HDX rig, this may not be totally accurate. Several plugins I use in native on my own HDN rig(that show zero latency on my rig) do show serious latency when used on the HDX rig.

[Matt Hepworth]

Originally Posted by digiot

Not following what you are saying. The only time latency is an issue on native systems is when live tracking. With the Hybrid engine that is taken care of.
VI’s have a much lower latency then live inputs. You don’t need to run VI’s at super low buffers (64 or lower)to not perceive latency.
RME and Quantum are solid on low buffers but still not as solid as HDX/Carbon.
As for UAD, if you are fine with rerouting everything through their 3rd party mixer just so you can track with no latency then cudos to you.Their workflow is horrible not even counting their lackluster DSP. I love their plug-ins but unless you have tons of their DSP chips they are not usable in a full mix.

Native is subject to buffer, protocol, converter delay, and driver. VIs are only affected by output latency, true. At 256 buffer that's about 9ms with Carbon and about 6ms with HDX. An Apollo WITHOUT LLM enabled (monitoring straight through PT and not using Console) is 6ms output latency at 256. Quantum is 5ms.

I agree Carbon and HDX aren't terrible for VIs, but if that's the focus they should be avoided, since native systems will provide superior latency for less investment.

However, HDX minimum buffer at 48kHz is 64 still, IIRC, while native interfaces are 32.
Taking all the above into consideration, the *absolute minimum* output latency is 4ms for Carbon, 2.5ms for HDX, 1.5ms for Apollo, and sub 1ms for Quantum.

Keep in mind this whole thread is about *native* plugins for input monitor paths with Carbon/HDX vs Native interfaces. Native is built for this and performs better. If we're talking audio input monitoring then DSP would come into play and Carbon (and, to a lesser extent HDX) would prove far superior to native RTL.

[Matt Hepworth]

Originally Posted by nst7

Thank you Matt.

So if Carbon is 17ms at a buffer of 256, what would it be for 64? Not sure exactly how the math works. Or does Carbon actually go down to 64, or even 32?

I've not tested 64. Others have stated 8ms.
The math is simply 128 samples for buffers in (64) and out (64), plus ~20 samples for conversion, plus protocol and driver (which I haven't tried to test). Take whatever that sum is and divide it by the samplerate (48) and you get your latency in ms. For the 8ms to be correct that last number (protocol and driver) needs to be 4-5ms alone.

~5ms would seem to be correct according to what I know of 256 (256+256+20+250=782 divide by 48=16.3ms, so pretty close).

[digiot]

Originally Posted by Matt Hepworth

Native is subject to buffer, protocol, converter delay, and driver. VIs are only affected by output latency, true. At 256 buffer that's about 9ms with Carbon and about 6ms with HDX. An Apollo WITHOUT LLM enabled (monitoring straight through PT and not using Console) is 6ms output latency at 256. Quantum is 5ms.

I agree Carbon and HDX aren't terrible for VIs, but if that's the focus they should be avoided, since native systems will provide superior latency for less investment.

However, HDX minimum buffer at 48kHz is 64 still, IIRC, while native interfaces are 32.
Taking all the above into consideration, the *absolute minimum* output latency is 4ms for Carbon, 2.5ms for HDX, 1.5ms for Apollo, and sub 1ms for Quantum.

Keep in mind this whole thread is about *native* plugins for input monitor paths with Carbon/HDX vs Native interfaces. Native is built for this and performs better. If we're talking audio input monitoring then DSP would come into play and Carbon (and, to a lesser extent HDX) would prove far superior to native RTL.

Yup all of that makes sense except for the fact that I don't understand people using Protools for composition with massive VI loads!? There are much better alternatives to Protools for that

[uptheoctave]

Originally Posted by digiot

Yup all of that makes sense except for the fact that I don't understand people using Protools for composition with massive VI loads!? There are much better alternatives to Protools for that

Some people have 30 years acquired knowledge in PT and changing DAW might just not be practical.

Not me, I use Logic for VI composition and then mix in Pro Tools.

[LFO]

Originally Posted by digiot

Yup all of that makes sense except for the fact that I don't understand people using Protools for composition with massive VI loads!? There are much better alternatives to Protools for that

Well, for myself I prefer to to everything from beginning to end in Protools (although I also use Ableton Live but for things impossible in Protools) and you're right VIs are not really easy inside ProTools, so I use VE Pro mostly using a second computer to host VIs. To me it's a very convenient way.

[nst7]

Originally Posted by LFO

Well, for myself I prefer to to everything from beginning to end in Protools (although I also use Ableton Live but for things impossible in Protools) and you're right VIs are not really easy inside ProTools, so I use VE Pro mostly using a second computer to host VIs. To me it's a very convenient way.

Just curious, you guys using VE Pro, especially on a second computer, are there advantages to that vs. hosting your instruments in another DAW, such as Logic?