Strange issue with a recorded track

[George Thomas]

Hi everyone,

I recorded a guitar cover a few days ago which also has a backing track. All good to go. And then I tried mastering it with some plugins which went well too. A few hours later I wanted to re-record a part of the track and noticed there is a huge latency. A couple of seconds between playing a note on the guitar and hearing it. So went ahead and deleted all the plugins but that did not help. A new project and other saved projects have no issues. I also tried creating a new instrument track on this project and it has no issue.  Not sure what could be wrong with this particular project. Initially thought it had to with a Windows update and uninstalled it too. Any advice?

Ps. Additional findings just now. I deleted a track that had volume automation and the the guitar input sounds fine (no latency) while playing it. The moment I arm it, the latency begins.

Thanks

Edited November 16, 2023 by George Thomas
Missed some addional info

[mettelus]

The most probable cause is that you have an effect with a look ahead buffer running, often a mastering plugin like Ozone. If you hit E (Global FX Bypass) does the latency persist when you arm the track?

[George Thomas]

1 hour ago, mettelus said:

The most probable cause is that you have an effect with a look ahead buffer running, often a mastering plugin like Ozone. If you hit E (Global FX Bypass) does the latency persist when you arm the track?

Appreciate the quick reply and the fix. You were right, it was a plugin (Q Range) which was deleted from the audio track and worked like a charm. Thanks again.

On a different note, I'm trying to mask a constant high hat that goes on as a metronome throughout the entire track (quite irritating) Q Range is 12 band equalizer and did the job but obviously bites me elsewhere ? Anyone know a good one that can remove or dampen a particular frequency.

[mettelus]

1 hour ago, George Thomas said:

On a different note, I'm trying to mask a constant high hat that goes on as a metronome throughout the entire track (quite irritating) Q Range is 12 band equalizer and did the job but obviously bites me elsewhere ? Anyone know a good one that can remove or dampen a particular frequency.

The included EQs should be able to address this easily. Some (like Sonitus Compressor) do not display the frequency spectrum, so SPAN (free) is a useful visual tool in such situations (can drop that anywhere in the FX chain to see what you are doing without affecting performance). For a parametric EQ, you want the Q factor pretty high (so shaped like a spike), reduction level pretty extreme (initially), then sweep frequency around until you find what you want to address (even without SPAN). Once you find it, back off the reduction level to a more reasonable setting (and can even flatten/reduce the Q factor to make the EQ less obvious). Having SPAN inserted in the FX bin after the EQ will let you visually see the adjustments you are making real time (with any plugin actually).