MuLab 8.4.18 (APDC)

[mutools]

M8.4.16 is available in http://www.mutools.com/mulab/beta/

• When playing live MIDI or live from the GUI, APDC will be avoided on that live MIDI as much as possible for an instant play feel.
  For example, if you have 2 parallel track racks, one with a synth, and one which causes a latency, now you can still play that synth without the latency!
• In some very specific cases involving APDC, stopping playback could lead into hanging notes. Fixed.
• The Latency Generator module now also has an event input + output jack which delay the events just like the audio.
• In case a VST plugin fails to load its data, the log file now contains a more explicit error line about it.
• In some cases, copying a module from one rack slot to another didn't work anymore. Fixed.
• When switching a rack off, its level meter got a frozen view instead of being reset to zero. Fixed.
• Several other practical improvements wrt. APDC.
• MacOS: Graphics were not drawn smoothly anymore. Fixed.

How to update:
Windows: Replace the current MuLab.exe and MuLab.ID by the new versions.
MacOS: Replace the current MuLab.app by the new version.

[mfkne]

M8.4.16 is available in http://www.mutools.com/mulab/beta/

• When playing live MIDI or live from the GUI, APDC will be avoided on that live MIDI as much as possible for an instant play feel.
  For example, if you have 2 parallel track racks, one with a synth, and one which causes a latency, now you can still play that synth without the latency!
• In some very specific cases involving APDC, stopping playback could lead into hanging notes. Fixed.
• The Latency Generator module now also has an event input + output jack which delay the events just like the audio.
• In case a VST plugin fails to load its data, the log file now contains a more explicit error line about it.
• In some cases, copying a module from one rack slot to another didn't work anymore. Fixed.
• When switching a rack off, its level meter got a frozen view instead of being reset to zero. Fixed.
• Several other practical improvements wrt. APDC.
• MacOS: Graphics were not drawn smoothly anymore. Fixed.

How to update:
Windows: Replace the current MuLab.exe and MuLab.ID by the new versions.
MacOS: Replace the current MuLab.app by the new version.

works fine now on Mac OS X, even on Catalina. Playhead runs smooth now. Thank you, Jo.

[mutools]

M8.4.17 is available in http://www.mutools.com/mulab/beta/

• In some cases when changing the latency of a module/plugin or when switching off a module with a latency, this could result in hanging notes. Fixed.
• Other little improvements.

How to update:
Windows: Replace the current MuLab.exe and MuLab.ID by the new versions.
MacOS: Replace the current MuLab.app by the new version.

[urvieh]

.. or when switching off a module with a latency, this could result in hanging notes. Fixed.

Thanks Jo! Great!

[e-crooner]

M8.4.17 is available in http://www.mutools.com/mulab/beta/

• In some cases when changing the latency of a module/plugin or when switching off a module with a latency, this could result in hanging notes. Fixed.
• Other little improvements.

I don't know anything about that compensation thingy, does your statement mean that I have to set the latency or some other parameters, or are those changes automatic?
Basically, do I have anything to do with the compensation or does it all happen in the background without my dealing with it?

[pljones]

@e-crooner -- my understanding is there are two ways:
- manual PDC: say you create a MUX with a hardware out and return to/from some old analogue kit that's got latency. There's no way for the host to know what that latency is or if it changes. The same can apply to some VSTs, if they don't report it...
- automatic PDC: a VST can tell the host what latency it introduces

For manual PDC, (as I understand it, again) there's a latency module you can use in MUX to report the latency of that MUX.

Thus, for the above highlight, it's changes to either the manually set value or the automatically reported value.

[e-crooner]

The A in APDC stands for automatic, I reckon?
Frankly, I hope I do not have to deal with those things.

Is there a list of plugins that create zero latency?

[mutools]

Don"t worry about APDC if you don"t want to worry about it, the A of APDC will indeed do all the work for you.

Currently all MuTools modules are zero latency (except the Latency Generator module) but i expect that in future new versions there will come some new modules that have a latency as APDC opens new sonic options.

[e-crooner]

And why do some plugins create latency in the first place? Lack of programming skills? Midi limitations?

[pljones]

Neither. Reality imposes certain restrictions due to time only running it one direction. You can't process something until after it's happened. If the amount of "something" you want to process is larger than one buffer, then you introduce latency. If the amount of time taken requires actual elapse time to pass, that too can require latency. If you don't need true real time processing (i.e. you don't perform live music), you may never be aware of it until you hit the issue of different audio paths having differing latency and things going askew more than you like. And even then, it's down to the "more than you like" rather than anything else.

[e-crooner]

But isn't the latency problem typical of the digital realm? Did audio engineers have to deal with it 40 years ago when they were still using tape machines, and hardware synths and effects?

[pljones]

If you split an audio signal and process it through two different paths and it takes a different length of time for the signal to arrive at the end of one path than it does at the end of the other, you have a difference in latency. Phase difference can be due to an analogue form of latency, in my view - some would have it that it's inherently digital. My view it's just a time domain artefact.

[Vortifex]

Edited

[dakkra]

Has a simpler method of sidechaining been implemented yet? On my current DAW I can just right click and select sidechain to the track. I saw a video of sidechaining in Mulab and it was pretty complicated.

Audio routing (and thus sidechain) is still handled via the Project MUX/Rack system. Sidechain still works the same as it has always in Mulab: route two audio sources into a level compressor with the first input being the through-audio and the second input as the sidechain signal.

[mutools]

M8.4.18 is available in http://www.mutools.com/mulab/beta/

• In more complex modular setups, the prioritization of live played modules/plugins was not working right, resulting in wrong latency management. Fixed.
• Also VST plugins are properly notified about live played events (eg. MIDI input)
• Modules now also have a "Show Info" context function which also includes latency info.

How to update:
Windows: Replace the current MuLab.exe and MuLab.ID by the new versions.
MacOS: Replace the current MuLab.app by the new version.