Keyboard latency after mixing

[Doug30]

Hi, All,

Really appreciate being able to post here.

Be warned that I’m probably the most helpless technophobe in the universe, so it would mean a lot to me if any replies didn’t assume I know *anything*.

Anyway, I record in Logic Pro X and then transfer my pre-mixed projects to another guy’s computer through AirDrop, at which point he mixes them and we transfer back. I almost invariably then continue to tweak the songs, typically through adding a software track or two to improve percussion.

Up to this point it has worked great, and everything added fits right in with his mix. Last night, however, I tried the same thing on a new project and get noticeable latency. If it helps, specifically I added a new software track - Cavern Kit, which is a standard drum kit included in the library - same as I’ve always done, and there’s a delay between pressing the key and hearing the sound.

To this point I’ve tried lowering the I/O buffer size to 32 and turning on Low Latency Mode, both to no avail. Also, interestingly enough there are multiple tempo changes in the song, and in the parts below 100 bpm there’s no latency. Anything above 100 bpm, however, and the latency is obvious.

I have to hope there’s an easy fix, like some limiter that was placed during mixing? With any discussion beyond this point and I’ll be totally clueless, including exactly how to get to any places in the project you’d want me to check, any discussion of buses, output, etc, if those are even relevant. LOL So if you could walk me through like I’m a 3 year-old I’d be grateful.

[progger]

I may have a suggestion! Can you see if your collaborator is putting any processing plugins in the "inserts" part of your "stereo out" channel?

To see that, press cmd-2 (or from your top menu, go "Windoe -> Open Mixer" to see all your tracks laid out like a console. Second from the right, you should see a "Stereo Out" channel. By default, that channel has nothing on it. But in the mix, sometimes people add compression, EQ, or a limiter for some final-touch processing.

Nothing wrong with that, except... if you're planning on tracking MIDI after the mix has started (which I normally wouldn't encourage, FYI!)... in Logic, effect inserts on the Stereo Out track tend to introduce considerable latency, even on powerful systems.

Check that out and see if there are any effects on the Stereo Out track that snuck in there without your knowledge. If there are, try turning them off, or, if necessary, removing them entirely!

[Doug30]

Super kind of you to reply, progger!

Ok, the strip second from the right has the following turned on: Compressor; Linear EQ; Multipressor; Exciter; Adaptive Limiter.

I turned them all off but still have the same degree of latency.

Then at the bottom of the strip it reads “Broadcast Ready,” which seems to be a mixing preset? Is that the issue? Also, I’m not sure how to remove it.

Another question, if I may. If I turn everything off, will the project sound crappy and dead, and what do I do from there in that case?

Thanks a ton.

[Doug30]

Update: I figured out how to bypass all plug-ins, but still the same latency. Sorry to be a pain.

[progger]

Not a pain in the slightest! In fact, I feel your pain... I hate latency with hellish fury.

As an experiment, instead of bypassing or disabling the plugins on the "stereo out" channel, try removing them altogether: click the little arrows on the right of the insert icon and select "No Plugin" from the menu for each thing. See if that works.

Either way, it seems that, yes, your collaborator is stacking on a bunch of neat toys that probably help with the mixing process but that introduce an unusable amount of latency. This won't matter if the writing/recording is indeed done, and the mixing engineer can just get to business. It might be a pain, but the solution might end up being to just establish some ground rules: no latency-inducing bus inserts until everyone agrees that the writing and recording are done!

In the meantime, I'd say just continue to go through and eliminate every possible culprit you can perceive: not just disable or bypass, but eliminate altogether! Save another version of the file if you want to keep a reference of what was there. Eventually you'll find your answer. Based on your most recent information, I'm pretty confident this is the path forward! Good luck.

[Doug30]

Progger,

Sorry for the late follow-up - wonderful things like work occupy me and keep me from the chore of creating.

You’re a miracle worker! You nailed it, and now I can play away without wanting to punch something having to hear that lag. It was so gracious of you to share your time and expertise - THANK YOU!

[progger]

So glad to hear it! And no trouble at all, I'm very happy to help. This happens to be an issue I've personally encountered, been frustrated with, and luckily figured out before too long.

Logic is, in general, a wonderfully elegant program, and I've been a fan and user for... wow, 16 years now, it would seem. But there are occasional things like this I don't understand! I'm not sure why a single compressor insert on the Stereo Out bus would cause more latency than a dozen individual instances on individual audio or MIDI channels, but that seems to be something that happens. (Maybe someone with better technical understanding of the under-the-hood software processes can clarify this.)

This behavior has helped to shape my own workflow, admittedly probably for the better: I tend not to do any "final bus" processing in a mix until all of the writing, arranging, and recording is DONE-done. That tends to help me commit to the writing/arranging/performance choices I've made, too.

[sonics]

Logic Pro's latency compensation can be difficult to understand. Checking the settings is a start, and plug-in latency can be viewed if the Help Tips are on.

The manual provides more information, for example the following paragraph from this page:

This may lead to problems if you decide to make further recordings after setting plug-in latency compensation to All, and inserting latency-inducing plug-ins in auxes and outputs. If Logic Pro needs to delay streams to compensate for plug-in latencies, you will be listening to delayed audio streams while recording. As such, your recording will be late by the number of samples that the audio streams were delayed by.

More info HERE.

Caveat: I'm not currently a Logic Pro user, but sorted something similar out for a friend some time ago.

[Doug30]

Also very helpful, sonics. I thank you!

[mountain lion]

What about the dream of Being able to play the controller with all effects on and no latency? At the moment when i record the effects are off for latency’s sake and there is no magic or inspiration

[Sam Spoons]

You can never achieve zero latency in a digital system, the best you can hope for is to get into single figure ms latency which is pretty much unnoticeable.

[MarkOne]

The problem is some of the plug-ins (particularly the adaptive limiter, whose look-ahead function inevitably adds a load of latency.

If you have to go back and track some more keyboards once all this mix processing is added, Logic has a low latency mode.

You can find more details at the bottom of this article:
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/105040

In fact you can add a button to toggle low latency mode on the tool ribbon (I forget how at the moment, and I'm on a train)

With that engaged, logic will suspend all the high latency plugins while you record.

Hope that helps

[mountain lion]

I would pay a lot of money to be able to play with effects without latency

[Sam Spoons]

See above, it can't be done.

[ajay_m]

I'm not entirely sure I get why I'd want to track with an effect like a lookahead compressor in the chain, and things like EQ, algorithmic reverb and a standard compressor ought to impose fairly small amounts of latency in most situations, surely.
Now that I am using a digital mixer in the studio I can exploit its vastly more powerful DSP and guaranteed upper bound on latency (I think 0.8ms from memory) to send inputs through EQ, reverb, compression etc and out to monitors or headphones while separately recording the clean unprocessed signal. Once tracks are recorded I can then enable an FX chain in the DAW and given that in the mixer every channel, bus and matrix has insert points, I can send live signals through that chain if I want, though latency is obviously considerably higher.
But as recommended in the thread, being cautious about chains during tracking goes a long way to avoid latency issues - and another useful thing to know is that if your gear can do 96KHz you can significantly reduce latency (at least under Windows, I really don't know about Macs). You would think that 256 samples at 96KHz would behave exactly the same as 128 samples at 48KHz, say, but in testing that's clearly not the case and its possible to get significantly better latency playing live VSTs at 96KHz without pops and crackles - but as I said, that's on Windows, I really do not know what the case will be in other operating systems. So now I just run the desk (which is also the 18:18 USB audio interface) at 96KHz all the time with Reaper.

[MarkOne]

I get the feeling that the OP isn't trying to track through plugins, but rather having done some mixing has found he needs extra keyboard parts (or perhaps different ones) so is trying to add these to a project that already includes processing on the mix.

I've done this myself and found exactly the same issue. Which is why the feature to switch to low latency mode is so useful for that.

[Drew Stephenson]

I get the feeling that the OP isn't trying to track through plugins, but rather having done some mixing has found he needs extra keyboard parts (or perhaps different ones) so is trying to add these to a project that already includes processing on the mix.

I've done this myself and found exactly the same issue. Which is why the feature to switch to low latency mode is so useful for that.

Yep, sometimes I'll find I need to add (or fix!) something in an already busy project and the easiest way for me to do it is bounce down a stereo file and record against that, then just load the new overdub into the original project.

[sonics]

With a low-latency interface and well-coded modern plugins it's amazing how many and how much plugin nonsense can be had these days. The end result on my lowest-latency system is equivalent to listening through an amp on the other side of a small room. Not really a problem for me. If a plugin instrument or effect is too heavy to be used like that, I record with a lighter one and replace it later. I'd rather get the musical idea down than worry too much about the sound at that time. I do realise it may be different for others, though.

One trick is to keep the lightweight instrument in the project so it's always available for the recording of a quick idea. I have a few plugins of that type; simple piano/electric piano, drum kit, multi-timbral synth etc. I can sketch away with no processor worries and expand it later.

Yep, sometimes I'll find I need to add (or fix!) something in an already busy project and the easiest way for me to do it is bounce down a stereo file and record against that, then just load the new overdub into the original project.

Can you not do that within the same project (in Reaper?).

[Drew Stephenson]

Yep, sometimes I'll find I need to add (or fix!) something in an already busy project and the easiest way for me to do it is bounce down a stereo file and record against that, then just load the new overdub into the original project.

Can you not do that within the same project (in Reaper?).

Theoretically yes, muting all the non-bounced tracks should reduce the latency in the same way but I find that it doesn't always do the job - and if it's causing enough issues that I need to go down this route (often I just work with the latency) then I find a clean temporary project works every time.