Higher latency in a particular project

[Ylan Sthlm]

Dear Sirs and Madams,

I am trying to record a track in project, but suddenly I get a lot more latency, and not only in my headphones, but also on tape as it were.

I have a fairly recent mac (iMac 2017, 27" i5 3.8 GHz and SSD and Logic, latest version, and Focusrite Clarett 4 pre, Thunderbolt), and even after having bounced all drums, and turned off the drummer track and frozen all other tracks I get a considerable latency, that I haven't heard before.

If I open a new project, it's gone.

Does anyone know what could be the problem?

Humbly Ylan

[Ylan Sthlm]

I might add, that I moved the project via a thumb drive to a much slower Mac (MBP 13", 2012) to bring to a summer house. Then I moved it back to my iMac, might this have screwed someting up?

Humbly, Ylan

[CS70]

Does anyone know what could be the problem?

Do you have any plugins active? When you record, you shouldn't have any, or just the minimal you need - like a synth you're playing for example.

[muzines]

Have you tried enabling Low Latency mode in Logic for recording?

You might have placed latency-inducing plugins in your mixer, which causes Logic to delay things to keep everything aligned.

Low latency mode temporarily turns off plugins that cause more than a small amount of latency, so you can track without having to remove them first.

[Ylan Sthlm]

And fascinatingly enough the latency is there even if I don't play the project, but only listen to my own handclap. Sounds like a slap delay.

And Logic says my roundtrip latency is 2.7 ms.
http://ylan.nu/filer/Latency.jpg

Humbly, Ylan

[Ylan Sthlm]

Thank you!

I started the project again (which I have done a couple of times, also computer and interface, to no avail) and now it's suddenly gone.

And I had removed all plugins. And as i wrote above, I could have several plugins on a test project I started.

I have no idea what might have gone on. Has anyone had this happen to them?

Humbly, Ylan

[Eddy Deegan]

Uh, this might be a stupid thing to ask but you don't have a delay insert somewhere which is set to 100% wet do you?

Just mentioning it in case. I've done it before...

[Ylan Sthlm]

Uh, this might be a stupid thing to ask but you don't have a delay insert somewhere which is set to 100% wet do you?

Just mentioning it in case. I've done it before...

That could very readily had been the case, but this time I removed everything.

And for you other helpful people, I bought my Clarett Thunderbolt to be able to track with some reverb. And it has always worked before, and is again.

Humbly, Ylan

[Eddy Deegan]

I'm not sure if you mean that the problem is now fixed or whether it is still there

If it is still there, but it is not a problem on other projects then this is almost certainly something to do with the project itself.

If you cannot fix it any other way then my suggestion would be to create a new project, verify that the latency is not on the new project, and then copy over the audio tracks from the old project to the new project.

As you do this, keep checking to make sure that the problem has not started on the new project.

Hopefully one way or the other you will have a solution!

[Ylan Sthlm]

I'm not sure if you mean that the problem is now fixed or whether it is still there

If it is still there, but it is not a problem on other projects then this is almost certainly something to do with the project itself.

If you cannot fix it any other way then my suggestion would be to create a new project, verify that the latency is not on the new project, and then copy over the audio tracks from the old project to the new project.

As you do this, keep checking to make sure that the problem has not started on the new project.

Hopefully one way or the other you will have a solution!

Cheers!

Yes, I will do that. Because it's not entirely gone. It's not as obvious, but when I listen back to the recording, I'm seemingly less tight than I normally am.

I'll bounce out the audio and put it in a new project and move on from there.

Humbly, Ylan

[Eddy Deegan]

You shouldn't need to bounce

In Logic if you have two projects open at the same time then you can copy and paste between them... at least I used to do that some time ago. I don't use logic these days but I would be surprised if that's changed now.

[MOF]

Have you ticked low latency mode?

[awjoe]

In Audition, there's an I/O Buffer Size, which I set to max for mixing (2048). The other day, having forgotten to change the buffer size, I started recording something and the lag was so big it was impossible to play - like when you heard the latency when you were listening to your own handclap. Anyway, I reduced the setting to 256 and everything was fine for recording. Desmond and MOF mentioned a low latency mode in Logic - have you looked at that? And is that the only way to change latency in Logic?

[Drew Stephenson]

Not sure how the Clarett software works but the Scarlett mix software has a latency setting - worth looking at if you haven't already.

[Ylan Sthlm]

Have you ticked low latency mode?

Cheers!

No I didn't, but I think there must have been something wrong then and there in that project. Processor use and IO was fine. I don't know whether you saw above, but the latency is supposed to be 2.7 ms (since it is a Thunderbolt interface and a fairly fast computer) and I didn't start any new heavy plugins, and wasn't bothered by any dropouts or clicks/pops. Furthermore I tried to freeze all other tracks and disable all plugins, so it definitely was something else going on.

Humbly, Ylan

[muzines]

I can't think of anything project specific other than plugin latency which would cause the behaviour you describe.

It only take a few seconds to hit the low latency button and give it a try, then you'll know if plugins are the cause, or you can rule that out...

[Ylan Sthlm]

I can't think of anything project specific other than plugin latency which would cause the behaviour you describe.

It only take a few seconds to hit the low latency button and give it a try, then you'll know if plugins are the cause, or you can rule that out...

I'll do that next time, but do frozen tracks and turned off plugins still draw juice?

Humbly, Ylan

[muzines]

I'll do that next time, but do frozen tracks and turned off plugins still draw juice?

Bypassed plugins can still induce latency, yes (this is likely so you can turn/automate bypass on and off while playing without causing clicks and dropouts).

You'd have to remove them completely (or use low latency mode) to drop the latency.

[ManFromGlass]

This brings back a memory of a similar problem I had. I think I fixed it by changing Plugin Latency Compensation.
This was many years ago but on the same computer. Or it might have happened because I changed the Process Buffer Range from medium to something else.
Sorry I can’t be more exact.
Plus this was 1 or 2 versions back of Logic.

[muzines]

This brings back a memory of a similar problem I had. I think I fixed it by changing Plugin Latency Compensation.

Old versions of Logic only had audio track/instrument compensation, so plugins causing latency on busses would not be compensated for and mess the mix up.

Later versions included "All" mode, which has been the default for a long time.

Perhaps you only had audio/instrument PDC set, and need to change it to "All" for things to work correctly...

In any case, this is a global setting, and not a project specific one, so is unlikely to be the cause of the problem, unless this project is the only project the OP used latency inducing plugins on busses...

[ManFromGlass]

Yes, this would have been before the All option.
And sometimes, but very rarely, a song would get corrupted and unfixable so I would drag everything into a new song or uncorrupted template and all would be good again. But it sounds like this is not the case here.

[Ylan Sthlm]

I'll do that next time, but do frozen tracks and turned off plugins still draw juice?

Bypassed plugins can still induce latency, yes (this is likely so you can turn/automate bypass on and off while playing without causing clicks and dropouts).

You'd have to remove them completely (or use low latency mode) to drop the latency.

Cheers desmond!

I think you are right! Low Latency Mode did make a huge difference! I noticed it when the latency of my MIDI controller in my new project was way behind the timing, and that was a way simpler project.

Am learning something new every day, not least from my friends here!

Humbly, Ylan

[muzines]

Great, glad we got to the bottom of it...

[ManFromGlass]

I always learn something here. Sometimes it’s a very simple but important thing. Yesterday I spent hours going through YouTube’s and searching the web for manuals and other users who had the same problem as I on the iPad.

Problem - recording apps on the iPad weren’t seeing my healthy mic signal coming in from the interface. It always worked before.

My mistake + Solution - I shut off the mic input for all those programs in general settings, assuming Apple was talking about the mic in the iPad. I was trying to avoid any potential feedback problems. Seems Apple in their wisdom really meant ALL audio input, rather than just internal mic input.

[ConcertinaChap]

Kudos to a brave and helpful man

CC