VST effects latency?

[KeithCF]

Hi -- when using compression as a VST insert on my snare track in Cubase LE, I notice a very very slight delay on the snare hit. I am guessing this is latency from the VST. Are there guidelines as to how many Ms I should back up the timing of the snare hit so I am still in time?

Also, I have effects that are available as both VST and DirectX plug-ins. Is one better than the other in terms of quality, using less processing power, etc.?

Thank you for your help and advice!

Keith

[foreverdown]

what sound card do you have and how fast is your computer?

[KeithCF]

Originally Posted by foreverdown

what sound card do you have and how fast is your computer?

Firepod external soundcard, laptop with P4 , 3.0 Ghz, 1 Gig RAM

[manning1]

keith. try backing up the snare track by minus 5 milliseconds in time (ie; the original track) and see if that works. copy the track first to experiment with.
if its still off try another 5 milliseconds and so on. hope it works ok for you.
peace.

[KeithCF]

Originally Posted by manning1

keith. try backing up the snare track by minus 5 milliseconds in time (ie; the original track) and see if that works. copy the track first to experiment with.
if its still off try another 5 milliseconds and so on. hope it works ok for you.
peace.

Thanks -- I'll try that. Any guidelines for using VST effects vs. DirectX? Or are they pretty much the same thing?

[manning1]

to be honest keith i dont believe in using lots of plug ins.
my recording philosophy is that great songs were done before plug ins ,
so i should be able to do so as well. KVR-vst.com has a boatload of plug ins.
directx or vst ? really depends on the individual plug in.
good and bad ive found in both formats.
another site i would turn you onto is noisevault.com. and the SIR reverb.
also a plug in called endorphin. really - it changes so much on a daily basis
one cant keep up. i dont want to be attacked but i would put in a good word for the directx plug ins that came with my powertracks software my wife bought for me. they can be used in other software like cubase ,
and have some very nice presets(they are dirx). in particular people like some of the flange, phase, echo(some great old vintage presets), and compressor/limit plug ins. used by people for mastering as well. but i dont want to influence you.just try them at your leisure if you wish some time.
you might also look around in google and enter into search "free directx vst plug in". this will bring up a boatload of plug in sites.
also hitsquad.com has a boatload of plug ins to try.
peace keith.

[KeithCF]

Originally Posted by manning1

to be honest keith i dont believe in using lots of plug ins.
my recording philosophy is that great songs were done before plug ins ,
so i should be able to do so as well. KVR-vst.com has a boatload of plug ins.
directx or vst ? really depends on the individual plug in.
good and bad ive found in both formats.
another site i would turn you onto is noisevault.com. and the SIR reverb.
also a plug in called endorphin. really - it changes so much on a daily basis
one cant keep up. i dont want to be attacked but i would put in a good word for the directx plug ins that came with my powertracks software my wife bought for me. they can be used in other software like cubase ,
and have some very nice presets(they are dirx). in particular people like some of the flange, phase, echo(some great old vintage presets), and compressor/limit plug ins. used by people for mastering as well. but i dont want to influence you.just try them at your leisure if you wish some time.
you might also look around in google and enter into search "free directx vst plug in". this will bring up a boatload of plug in sites.
also hitsquad.com has a boatload of plug ins to try.
peace keith.

Thanks Manning -- you always have something helpful to say --

Keith

[thehouseofshawn]

Originally Posted by manning1

keith. try backing up the snare track by minus 5 milliseconds in time (ie; the original track) and see if that works. copy the track first to experiment with.
if its still off try another 5 milliseconds and so on. hope it works ok for you.
peace.

Is this the most common way to adjust the latency?

[manning1]

the problem is shawn that some people are using slightly older computers.
(think SLOWER).
the new amd 64 processor (read up at amd.com) due to the way it was designed and its speed, people are finding much lower latency figures.
what some multitrack software manufacturers try to do is compensate in their software for latency. it really depends on the multitrack software that you are using. they also compensate for plug in latency.
some do anyway.
within 3 years due to faster computer architectures i expect latency will be a thing of the past. right now on my pc i get negligible latency.
but then i'm a computer engr.

[Bass Jas]

I don't know about LE, I have SX, and it seems to auto delay things that need processing, but never an individual track, it compensates for the most demanding track, and delays the whole song accordingly.
Then again, I am running an AMD Athlon 64 bit 3200, it flat rocks.
But, a P4 3.0 with a gig is nothing to sneeze at, perhaps the firepod has an issue? I've heard how touchy the latency settings can be on those.
I guess I have nothing to help you with, but I'm interested in the solution.
-J

[KeithCF]

Originally Posted by Bass Jas

I don't know about LE, I have SX, and it seems to auto delay things that need processing, but never an individual track, it compensates for the most demanding track, and delays the whole song accordingly.
Then again, I am running an AMD Athlon 64 bit 3200, it flat rocks.
But, a P4 3.0 with a gig is nothing to sneeze at, perhaps the firepod has an issue? I've heard how touchy the latency settings can be on those.
I guess I have nothing to help you with, but I'm interested in the solution.
-J

I was just reading on the Steinberg site, and in the feature description for Cubase SX (I am running LE) they say:

Full latency compensation
The tedious, time-consuming process of manually delaying tracks where effects are needed is now history. The new delay compensation plug-in in Cubase SX 2.0 ensures sample-accurate timing along the entire audio path, including aux sends, group channels and FX return channels - even when using effects from DSP cards such as the Universal Audio UAD-1 or TC Works' Powercore.

The SE product description (which is most similar to LE) doesn't say this, so I am wondering if it's one of the features you get when you step up to SX. But you're saying it delays the whole song and not track by track? Strange.

For the Firepod, the latency settings seem to work pretty well. You can adjust from 2 Ms to 16 or higher and it hasn't caused any problems. But I don't think the Firepod latency settings would even enter into the equation on playback with VST effects, would it? Those latency settings would effect things during recording -- right?

Keith

[manning1]

nice system bass. what mainboard you using ?
peace.
keith i'll let you in on a programming secret, so you understand this latency issue. originally programmers had to write to a special api (programmers format) dictated by windows to do sound. the problem was there was a finite time that occurred for windows to interpret the calls by the audio software to the soundcard. thus the word latency occurred, in milliseconds. then some bright sparks said well lets just bypass the windows api and get to the core of it all thus making things faster(thus ASIO came about). the idea being to lower the latency in milliseconds. MS decided they wanted to get some control method back in all of this thus WDM was born.
now whats interesting from a tek perspective is because linux came from
a different perspective , ive heard some really low latencies like 2ms in linux.
so it WAS doable all along. it wasnt the hardware holding things back but the way the win OS originally worked and how audio programmers had to work within its boundaries.
frankly within a couple of years i think latency will be a thing of the past as the processors are getting so fast.
peace.

[Bass Jas]

Hey Keith, I've been thinkin about this, but first - Manning: I went with the ASUS K8V dlx (built it back in Feb.) it seems to be rock solid, but no option for matched mem (guess I can install matched?)
Anyway, to stay on subject: Keith this could be a simple problem of your compressor setting.
1 - are you using cubase dynamics, or a different plug?
2 - if either is true, your attack time may be way too short, or more importantly, your release time too long, and probably both.
3 - i'm used to hardware compressors, and I am not a Jedi, but software compressors don't seem to behave like what I'm used to, that said, try tweakin one thing at a time, lessen the release time first.
4 - sounds like you want to make the snare bigger/longer?
Hit us back with what you are aiming at, and don't forget to use the force.
-J

Edit: I had no idea that the software was doing this, I just got into Cubase 6 months ago, but I can't believe anyone would suffer through manually adjusting tracks in milliseconds? Guess I'm lucky, but I feel for you brothers. Again, sorry Keith, this may be of no help, but I record to a ded. Hard drive on an Alesis HD24XR, then import to PC and Cubase via firewire dock.

[KeithCF]

Originally Posted by Bass Jas

Hey Keith, I've been thinkin about this, but first - Manning: I went with the ASUS K8V dlx (built it back in Feb.) it seems to be rock solid, but no option for matched mem (guess I can install matched?)
Anyway, to stay on subject: Keith this could be a simple problem of your compressor setting.
1 - are you using cubase dynamics, or a different plug?
2 - if either is true, your attack time may be way too short, or more importantly, your release time too long, and probably both.
3 - i'm used to hardware compressors, and I am not a Jedi, but software compressors don't seem to behave like what I'm used to, that said, try tweakin one thing at a time, lessen the release time first.
4 - sounds like you want to make the snare bigger/longer?
Hit us back with what you are aiming at, and don't forget to use the force.
-J

Hi --
1) Using the Cubase VST compression, used as an insert on a group channel
2) Threshold: -35 db, ratio 7:1, attach 20 ms, release 60 ms, makeup gain 12db
3) I'll try tweaking the settings -- or maybe just mess with backing the track up by a few Ms and see if that fixes it.
4) Bigger, crackier, more powerful snare is what I'm after. I am actually using Drumagog to replace the recorded snare hit. As a test, I have compressed the dry non-Drumagog'd track and can hear the delay there too after the VST effect is in. Mind you, it's slight, like a very tight flam, but it's there.

Interestingly, Drumagog recommends backing up tracks using their plug-in by .36 Ms to make up for the processing delay. I'm thinking the same thing is happening with the VST compression. Steinberg's comment in their Sx feature description about "no more manually adjusting tracks for effects delay" reinforces that idea.

I'd love anyone's thoughts about how to get around it though!

Thanks --

Keith

[Bass Jas]

Minus 35????? and 7 to 1???
Are you going for effect (obviously)?
I have no exp w/drumagog, or latency compensation, but -35/7:1 seems extreme, sounds like you should experiment with a reverb and drop the compression altogether. Are You using any verb? Reverb is a snare's best friend. (not to insult)
j

[manning1]

keith. try lowering the release time. in 5 millisecond increments . tell me if that helps.
peace.

[earworm]

now, does getting a 64bit CPU really help much for latency issues?
i thought the AMD64 bit processors were only for gamers

mhh, i guess you can use real low buffers with such a cpu,
but is there a real big difference between 64 bit and the 'normal" processors?

now,,,might sound a bit silly, but,
what are you trying to Compress, Keith?
the LIVE SIGNEL you are recording?
or did you already record everything, and are now doing some non destructive work?

[manning1]

earworm. yesterday i posted a link showing the low latency performance
figures of the amd 64.
in summary - yes - the 64 is delivering very low latency due to its computer architecture and speed.
heres the link...
http://techreport.%20com/reviews/200...5/index.x?pg=1

[KeithCF]

Originally Posted by earworm

now, does getting a 64bit CPU really help much for latency issues?
i thought the AMD64 bit processors were only for gamers

mhh, i guess you can use real low buffers with such a cpu,
but is there a real big difference between 64 bit and the 'normal" processors?

now,,,might sound a bit silly, but,
what are you trying to Compress, Keith?
the LIVE SIGNEL you are recording?
or did you already record everything, and are now doing some non destructive work?

I was trying to compress a previously recorded snare track. I dug into the Cubase LE help, and it states there that VST affected tracks are automatically adjusted for time delays. I think it's likely that my compression settings were too intense and giving me that flamming sound.

I don't think Cubase adjusts for DirectX plug-in processing delays though, so I'll be curious to see if any adjustments are needed for mixes where I'm using a lot of DX effects.

Keith

[earworm]

thanx, gonna read some more about 64 bit cpu's, pretty interesting,

and oh, i never notice latency when putting FX on pre-recorded tracks

i did have a problem with some PSP plugins when using them in soundforge,
they did have some latency, don't know where it came from,
but it wasn't my computer i was using...so might be hardware problems....

most of the time i work with about 6 tracks of audio
(48 khz 24 bit)

i record drums and most of the time there's One extra guitar track,
i always got FX on EACH channel,,,,, with fx i mean compressors on the drumtacks and maybe some verb here and there

i only got an Athlon 2500+ xp, 256 MB of RAM ! runs nice my system,
but i don't have ANY other software installed

cubase sx 2.0, and soundforge, THATS IT,
so my system is stable

i'm gonna get 1 GIG of ram which will help me to push my limits even further,
in general, the less plugins i got installed, the better my audio quality,
since this just forces me to invest LOTS of time in the few plugins i got,

quality, not quantity

[manning1]

earworm. for your needs i dont frankly think you need a 64.
just up the ram. that athlon xp of yours will do a ton of tracks without needing a 64.

[earworm]

thats what i thought...MORE RAMM please !
still waiting for my pair of corsair memory things to arrive...
can't wait to put 22 FX on each channel