Izotope Vocal Doubler source of severe MIDI latency

[Colin Nicholls]

Perhaps it is just me and my system, but I had an experience last night I thought I'd share:

I opened one of my older, completed projects to do some testing and I noticed a horrible delay between pressing a key on my MIDI controller and hearing the note from the currently selected instrument track. This is MIDI latency, even when playback was halted. Just auditioning the instrument tracks after opening the project, I could hear the problem.

The project was fairly dense with tracks and FX VSTs but I finally isolated the problem to an audio track in a different folder, a guitar lead that I'd experimented with Izotope's Vocal Doubler to make the lead "stand out". This is a pretty common trick, works well. Not sure why I settled on Vocal Doubler but it did the job well.

I knew the latency was FX related because activating "Bypass FX" on the mix module cleared the problem up instantly.

After methodically working through tracks and busses, disableing FX bins, I finally isolated the problem to Izotope Vocal Doubler. It took a little extra time to verify because the latency would hang around for a while until I toggled the Audio Engine button in the transport.

It seems odd that an FX on a completely separate audio track would be the source of MIDI latency, even when playback is halted.

Solution: Replace Izotope Vocal Doubler with an instance of Sonitus Delay (~30 ms slapback panned 75% right at 40% volume) and frankly, it sounds just as good. No MIDI controller latency. Job done.

Posting here in case it helps someone else.

EDIT: I just realized this forum is for Cakewalk Instruments and FX... um... perhaps this post should be moved to, um, well I suppose the Sonar or Cakewalk general forums would work.

Edited August 31 by Colin Nicholls

[Colin Nicholls]

EDIT: Duplicate. Good grief I'm having a bad forum day.

Edited August 31 by Colin Nicholls

[Starship Krupa]

7 hours ago, Colin Nicholls said:

I just realized this forum is for Cakewalk Instruments and FX... um... perhaps this post should be moved to, um, well I suppose the Sonar or Cakewalk general forums would work.

Actually, it says at the top "the use and integration of plug-in instruments and effects in Cakewalk by BandLab."

I've never taken that to mean only the ones that come with CbB/Sonar, but rather all plug-ins that one may use with CbB/CS.

[Colin Nicholls]

Well, it's under a group called "Cakewalk Products", so... but it probably doesn't matter that much

 

[Starship Krupa]

On 8/31/2024 at 4:29 PM, Colin Nicholls said:

it probably doesn't matter that much

Well, even if it wasn't the original intention, the two longest topics in this subforum refer exclusively to 3rd-party plug-ins.

Those would be the Favorite Freeware lists.