azslow3

Sorry, English is not my primary language. Is your question about Dell XPS? All XPS (independent from version) and most Latitudes have latency problems. DELL has messed something in hardware and/or BIOS, they periodically release "BIOS updates" which should improve latency. But all tests in the Internet confirm opposite. Last BIOS update prevent Linux to run normally, at least in my case... Linux developers write that Dell BIOS export buggy information. That can be the reason why MS ACPI driver periodically spike up to 3-5ms. Some people disable devices assigned to ACPI, some of them claim improvements... Can audio interface influence the result? A kind of. Roland VS-20 is just dead freezing on my XPS (re-connecting does not help to get the sound back). RME BF-Pro has no problems in 64 samples / 48kHz, at least under light load. That does not mean there is no glitches at all, but resulting sound is acceptable for me. Important to have absolutely no background activity. So all MS tasks should be finished, network disconnected, no extra USB devices. Completely different point. How you connect your keyboard? F.e. I periodically get strange latency from my DP (Kawai) and E-Drums (Roland), both connected with USB. I know it is strange because 2 other MIDI keyboards connected in parallel have no such key to sound delay. I still do not understand under which conditions that happens. Try connect by MIDI to the audio interface (or USB in case you always use MIDI) to check there is (no) difference. 5-7ms soft synth output latency (128 samples buffer) should not be significantly inconvenient if the rest is ok (transferring 10 finger chord throw MIDI cable takes 6-10ms, I have seen people playing MIDI keyboards on stage ? )

I will not repeat my post in recent thread, you can find full story if your want. Two major points: for some people it takes much longer. I can not update even just Assistent in 5 minutes for some people Assistent NEVER works as expected, I guess also the consequence of slow connection Recently I have upgraded my computer. So, Windows 10 installed from scratch and updated. Downloaded new assistant. "Installing..." (NO PROGRESS INDICATOR). After an hour, I have decided to check... the file it was downloading was not growing. To check that, I had to know where files are, no? Unlike on my old computer, the second attempt to install CbB with Assistant was successful: it has managed to start installation after downloading. Still, all that is Pain.

Got it. So opposite idea from "early" processing, with "late" processing for the content in live track. But if CbB developers will manage to calculate correct delay difference between live and other, why not do "early" processing and remove PDC button (since there will be no need for it)? ?

Well, this option automatically makes one MIDI track live. In my tests always. Without clicking on anything. If you have no difference between this option on and off, something is really broken. If you try the test I have described before, with 3 tracks, do you get expected result? If yes (so no problem), there is probably some fancy routing in your project.

+ Do NOT buy DELL XPS or other DELL "slim" toys. Not only my XPS has bad latency, after some BIOS update fan on the left side always spinning. With the latest BIOS update Linux can not run at all. Complete BIOS downgrade is not possible. Noisy like hell (fans, some electrical cracking inside notebook and power supply) peace of crap...

I do not know how delaying MIDI an help with PDC. MIDI is bound to input audio. "Precalculating" not live tracks with delays is from my knowledge the only know way to deal with PDC better (eliminates the problem almost completely, except open question what to do when live track has a send to delayed bus). No possibility to permanently set MIDI input to "None" and no possibility to permanently disabled VST MIDI output (or at least not include it into "All" stream) are 2 from many long standing bugs... "Allow MIDI Recording without an Armed Track" (record arm by echo) sounds as logical as "Record arm but don't record" (monitor without recording) in one another DAW ?

"Always echo" is a kind of useful when there are several instruments, for fast switching between them using the only MIDI keyboard. Changing the instrument is a matter of selecting another track then and that can be easily automated. Usually proposed way is avoiding plug-ins with delays till the end phase of mixing or even till mastering, so auto echo is normally not an issue. Some plug-ins have really huge delays, up to 1 second. Mixing in such environment is almost impossible, any parameter in the chain before such plug-in takes 1 second before it is audible. I was so used to this option that I was missing it in other DAW. Especially when achieving the same effect requires 3 different track options set, for each track in question.

I have my own checklist, and recently updated it: http://www.azslow.com/index.php/topic,395.0.html With all ideas I could find in the Internet about the topic, including exotic and questionable "rumor". Most staff is not so important, really I have to put somewhere that "Use Latency Monitor to check system latency and problems with devices/driver" and "Use REAPER build-in Performance Monitor to check audio/plug-ins timing" sections are where people should start. RME control panel can show severe hardware problems, ThrottleStop problems with cooling and fancy CPU settings, REAPER RT monitor can show where is the bottleneck, Latency Mon identify the driver (sometimes MS performance tool is needed to find real driver). All that within 5 minutes, without thinking much... It can be some PCI-e card does not show bad things in related driver but cast other devices/drivers problems, but that is unusual. No checklist can make bad designed hardware better. F.e. nothing can help DELL XPS running with low latency. But at least utilities can point where the problem is (in case of DELL that is system related hardware, accessed by ACPI, and severe system locks probably coming from the same source). Also mentioned tools give exact numerical values which compromise is worse the effort. F.e. in many cases disabling C-states, SpeedStep and locking CPU frequency just allow to run at 32/48/64 buffer size instead of 48/64/96. And I guess some people will prefer to have 8W CPU power consumption and so idle fan and no noise with 96 samples buffer size, instead of reducing it to 64 by spending 40W on idle system.

Sure, one track is one track, in any DAW. So a synth/FX is included in PDC or not included in PDC. To make existing content playing with PDC and live playng without PDC the track should be duplicated and existing content removed from the copy, with recording to the copy. DAWs are only different in which PDC is applied to particular track. In CbB, there is one global PDC for all parallel chains. There are DAWs which have one PDC for all live chains, but per chain PDC for not live chains, with automatic aligning. In the last case disabling PDC is not required at all, live chains never get delayed from not live chains in this case. -- What OP describes exactly match behavior from my example. So I prefer to ask one more time before agree there is yet another bug in CbB ?

It can be reproduced with 3 tracks: audio track with 2x ReaFIR, 2 instrument tracks with identical MIDI clips, originally in sync with audio. (After PDC is calculated correctly after adding ReaFIR, which may need project reload) as long as PDC for live tracks is not disabled everything is in sync. Disable PDC (with transport stop and rewind). With "Always Echo..." set, one of the instrument tracks will go out of sync (no matter what you click/select).

As long as the option "Always Echo Current MIDI Track" is set, you always have one MIDI track live. So no, you do not need to click/select/etc. the track for that. Unset that option in preferences, check then echo is off on all MIDI/instruments tracks and try again. Notes: If you change something during playback, that does not recalculate PDC. So you need to stop transport, make the change, start transport (Sonar/CbB was never good processing modification on the fly) Sometimes PDC button is buggy. Try to rewind/reset audio engine (the same for many strange things). Check magic "prepare MIDI" buffer size (given in ms, default 50, try 500-1000). It should be long when you have plug-ins with delays (that option is buggy for at least 5 years). Synths can "skip" notes and have other strange behavior otherwise. PS. using plug-ins with delays and record in parallel without thinking about PDC and fancy buffers is possible, but not in CbB...

Can it be that the track in question has auto echo on? I remember that is default option but it can be turned off. That will explain the synth excluded from PDC is different (follow focus), since even without record arming, in case echo is (auto)enabled (synth can be played with MIDI keyboard), that is "live input".

Just to clarify... To don't hear a delay on live inputs you turn OFF PDC (PDC is on by default for everything). Normally when turned off, PDC affect live inputs. So, live inputs are out of sync with the rest but can be monitored without delay. So, you observe some synth(s) with not armed nor monitored MIDI track on input are also ignoring PDC, so they are in sync with your live recording, right?

One FW M-Audio without pre-amps but with encoders, as standard audio interface for computer. Another M-Audio with 2 pre-amps which can be chained with the first one, it was placed more close to gear. Phonic Firefly, which play the role of rack mixer with a possibility to work as an interface. VS-20, too unstable under Windows, has high latency, but works under Linux (unlike all mentioned before). Babyface Pro as portable and the only quality product I have.... Not to count interfaces in e-drum, vocal processor and small analog mixer. Why? I had no one wise in the near to plan my home gear ?

Plug-in delay and related PDC in many cases can not be solved by faster computers. Like you can not reduce the size of your shadow by running faster... We do not suggest you change your workflow. Your original observation was "Vocal clips, when recorded are not synced correctly". That is a bug. In the DAW, in some plug-in or just in the way you use the DAW or some particular plug-in. So our recommendation is attempt to find it. Note that your proposal to just automatically disable FX engine on recording, while sounds like ultimate, is not really ultimate. If there is a bug with PDC, it can affect not only recording but also playback. Depending from plug-ins and routing, audio clip has to be at "wrong place" to sound in sync, f.e. when some plug-in is in parallel with vocal chain. BTW that you can test: when you get "not synced" recording, does it play correctly with all FXes off?

FX should report latency correctly. DAW should take it into account. If FX is used in monitoring chain, there is nothing DAW can do, except giving "bypass all" functionality. DAWs distinguish between keeping FX "hot", so ready to include it into processing chain any time, "cold" when plug-in is still there but does not influence project and "off" when plug-in is unloaded. Well, theory is good, but what can you do practically? It is good to identify which plug-ins introduce which latency and what is complete routing. Unfortunately, CbB does not show you which PDC is applied. You can try (that is quick) the following: install REAPER (portable will work, demo is fully functional) and ReaCWP extension to it. Point to your custom VST folders in preferences. Open your CbB project (better a copy... if ReaCWP is installed correctly, you will be able to do this, with some luck it will be loaded currectly) and open View/Performance Meter or Track Manager. Here you will see PDC per track. Note that values are rounded to the buffer size, for each FX individually, so in CbB you probably have less PDC then shown here. Opening FX of individual track and selecting concrete FX will show actual PDC for this plug-in in the left bottom corner.

Disclaimer: the following is IMHO, not 100% sure. PDC on/off just switch PDC (delay compensation) for tracks you are recording. So it change what you hear during live monitoring but is should not influence the time where recorded material is placed. As Scook has mentioned, most common source for not correctly placed recorded clips is your audio interface drivers. By default, CbB assume latency reported by the driver is correct and "reverse" the effect (note that is not Plug-in Delate Compensation (PDC) but Interface Delay Compensation (has no common abbreviation)). So first check you have everything right without plug-ins: record dry vocal and try to record another dry vocal listening the first recording, in case the result is not what you expect you have problems with interface delay settings. PDC works by trusting the information provided by plug-ins. There can be "bad" plug-ins which report no latency while introducing it (that can be helpful in some cases). In this case a DAW has no chance to compensate correctly, try to find plug-in in question and search for something like "live mode/zero latency" option in that plug-in. Good plug-ins with such options do that right, they really switch to different algorithms to avoid latency. But "bad" plug-ins can simply set Delay parameter to zero, without doing anything else.

Not only network related drivers give a bit too high numbers, especially in case you work with low buffer size. Check with ThrottleStop (it is a tiny utility without installer) that your CPU is in performance mode. To check what is behind Wdf0100.sys, use Windows performance toolkit. You will see real driver then.

I have recently return to the topic how to debug latency issues... In attempt to understand a problem on a friend's computer (kind of solved, but still no optimal, work in progress) and my own DELL XPS (here the conclusion is simple... DELL XPS (from the Inet ALL of them) are disaster for audio. But at least I have learned how to use already known for me and yet new tools: * Latency Monitor and In Depth Latency test. Detects general system CPU/MB glitches, shows latency spikes and detect some bad drivers * ThrottleStop. Shows thermal situation of CPU/GPU, the distribution of C states, accurate CPU load and frequency. Also allows to change many power management parameters on the fly. * Windows Performance Toolkit from Microsoft (a part of ATK). Shows precise graphs of all timings, down to concrete drivers ISR/DPC (Latency Monitor can not distinguish drivers behind "frameworks"). Finally, REAPER performance monitor displays precise real-time processing length (not the same as real-time CPU load, but it is also shows). Sonar/CbB has no that kind of diagnostic. My comments about all that you can find here: http://www.azslow.com/index.php/topic,395.0.html. Open spoiler near "Latency Monitor" and REAPER. Another generic check I started to use recently is https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/. After quick test, it display how good/bad your computer components perform in comparison with other users computers with the same components. PS. I am not convinced I can find all possible origins of latency problems. But I am convinced using mentioned tools I can find concrete numbers and graphs describing such problems.

Unfortunately after Sonar X3 Cakewalk has introduced online authorization. I still have X3 installed, also that is the last version which I have manage to run under Wine (I develop under Linux, with cross compiling). And now there is one single DAW which still use completely offline authorization (apart from Ardour, which is not universal). All other want authorization, including free Cakewalk and Traktion. Fortunately, this DAW is multi-platform (Linux version is still "beta", but I have found it way more stable than Waveform "releases"). And it took the lead as an accessible DAW (sharing that with Samplitude and ProTools on Apple, many years Sonar 8.5 had this position... lost with switching to X1 GUI). I in fact had no choice, taking my wished into account ? I still launching Sonar or CbB when I want my control surfaces do what I want them to do. And will continue at least till AZ Controller 2 is ready...

Till it is broken/stolen/forgotten... Sure, not as bad as iLok could, which can be down for a day, without excuse, explanation or reply from support. For dongle methods, I think Waves is reasonable: no need for dedicated dongle, lost/forgot USB stick - no problem, once per year restore all licenses in 1 minute. Remembered where this USB is? No problem! Reset "once per year" counter in 1 minute. But I will try to continue selecting my "goto DAW" with completely offline key authorization. Fortunately that is still possible.

"My" copy of 2019.9 is 600MB... User friendly products with fixed activation time I have used can display expiration time... I know, running Assistant periodically is possible, but... I had 2019.3. So assistant need to be updated. assistant can not update itself ("something went wrong") downloaded and installed assistant manually 50MB. Well... tee, cigarette... downloaded. In case of update: "Update available", update button pressed playing piano... having dinner... (takes more then 1 hour for me in case my daughter is watching Netflix) "Update available" (no errors, nothing, like I have never pressed update button before and I have not seen slowly progressing download) ? update button pressed... (waiting another 30 minutes - no one was using Internet at all this time) "Update available" (no errors, nothing, like I have never pressed update button before and I have not seen slowly progressing download) ??? ok... I am smart... I have found downloaded file and run it manually, installed without problem ?

You send the heartbeat (PingHuiIfRequired) from RefreshSurface only. Bad idea... Refresh Surface is not called when some CW dialogs are open (till they are closed), can happened some other GUI elements prevent updates as well. MIDI prepare buffer "magic size" is the time based length of DX plug-ins playback window. I doubt it is used for anything related to the number of queued MIDI messages. But Noel can correct me, that is just a guess (in the part it is not used for something else...).

After reading post from Marco about D8b, I have just googled... There is a preset for Platform M+ http://www.azslow.com/index.php?topic=386.0 "ACT" (Dynamic Mapping) mode allows control plug-ins (including synth and ProChannel). I do not see controls to select the plug-in, you will need to do this by mouse or extend the preset with selection controls. I have no idea how good the preset is working, Hermu has made the preset without me ? In the comments he writes D2 shows something. So yes, that is possible.

Some features are implemented in the BCR2000, referenced in the previous post. Syncing FXes is a documented action. Stop on marker is "Presets which work without surfaces". If you can not find something particular, I can find that for you...