Is this normal? (midi behaviour)

[aciddose]

just go into the options and disable latency compensation - it would depend upon exactly which host you're using - but it shouldn't ever compensate the midi input, actually.

you'll still end with all the same problems. if your composition was correctly timed in the first place you could have solved the delay issue by simply dragging the chunk of events forward to line up at the proper point.

[Tony Ostinato]

both are right.


with a well screwed up system with lots of latency the midi will be recorded and corrected to be in time with the playback audio however the monitor audio of the recording part will be affected and not compensated resulting in a delay being heard, if you try and manually correct this by playing ahead of the beat it might sound ok during recording but will be off during playback when compensation is in effect, it will sound as ahead of the beat as you played, even tho by playing ahead of the beat during recording it sounded good during recording.

what i do is use a seperate computer set at the lowest latency to provide the realtime audio for playing while recording midi into another pc set at higher latency for tracking and mixing. the "instrument" pc is at 64 samples and the "recording" pc is at 512 samples.

i record the part and then after its recorded i assign the matching vsti on the recording pc and play it back. i have the matching vsti on the recording pc turned off while recording to avoid the delay echo effect we talked about above.


otherwise if thats not it there could be a slew of other things going on, one thing ive always been superstitious about is having my midi and audio on the same card, i think that helps for tight sync.

[reflekshun]

Tony: Thankyou VERY much, this is the answer I've been looking for.

I've thought down the lines of using two separate computers. I may just end up doing that.. Good to hear there are people doing this.

if you try and manually correct this by playing ahead of the beat it might sound ok during recording but will be off during playback when compensation is in effect, it will sound as ahead of the beat as you played, even tho by playing ahead of the beat during recording it sounded good during recording.

I think this answers the bulk of my question. This implies the problem I'm experiencing is caused by the delay compensation feature itself.

I need to read up on exactly how delay compensation works and what it does. I realise on the surface, that in cubase it shuts of delay inducing plugins, so the latency is down to its minimum. But I need to know exactly how it works to understand my problem I think. I'll have to do some reading..

What happens in a sequencer that does not have auto delay compensation? I think this is how I used to work with older soundcards / sequencers that didn't have delay compensation. So I could have massive delay, but midi would record as late as I heard it. Does that sound right Tony?

If this is so.. perhaps there is hope for a way to work like this again..

[aciddose]

there are two types of delay compensation:

1) when you use a plugin with latency, every other plugin has a delay added so that all plugins have matching latency. latency means the delay between when a sound is "generated" (triggered by midi or otherwise) and when you actually hear it.

2) when recording audio or midi due to the plugin latency you may be playing early in order to having things line up if you're listening using a plugin. you may be playing too late if you're using an external or real-time device. the midi and audio inputs may be moved either forward or backward to compensate for this effect.

the only real solution: eliminate all latency and compensation.

- don't use any plugins when you're recording
- do one thing at a time, midi or audio, then work them together after they're recorded
- don't mix playback and recording unless you know what you're doing
- create tracks with proper timing so that you can compensate by hand and quantize. if you ever feel you need to "guess" or otherwise don't understand timing you have a major problem. any idiot knows exactly how to compensate parts, quantize or adjust tempo. i'm not saying you're an idiot, my point is that you really, really, really need to learn how to do this. this is the point you should start at as a daw user, this is the first problem any amature runs into and the first thing you should solve.

[reflekshun]

aciddose, chill out dude.

any idiot knows exactly how to compensate parts, quantize or adjust tempo.

I have been doing this and everything you suggest over the past few years, however the point of this post, is to look for a more professional, less comprimising solution, something like what Tony has offered.

The piano parts are detailed, classicaly influenced and cannot be quantized effectively because of the free nature of the style. Triplets, straight notes, trills, runs and so on do not respond well to quantizing, but over the past few years I have learnt to quantize what I can. Although, even iterative quantize will change the feel of what you have played, so you lose part of the 'live' element.

Thanks again.

[Muzik 4 Machines]

simplest solution
use a harware sound module to monitor(since the midi will be at the right place, so you'll monitor with 0 latency)

[reflekshun]

lol yep, I'll keep that solution in mind Thanks

[aciddose]

when i mention quantization i'm talking about quantization of parts, not individual notes.

there is no less compromising way.. the old way was to write each note using a pen on paper..

a majority of classical/piano composers still do.

you can't expect a pc to do things requiring human intelligence, especially not make decisions which are potentially creative decisions. knowing where to move a part or what to line up to is absolutely not in the domain of a computer.

i've suggested from the start that the only solution is to not use the plugins at all, and use an external generator like a mt-32 so you get instant feedback. stick to all midi, or all audio. if you do hybrid like you're doing now there is absolutely no less compromising way.

[Tony Ostinato]

yep, in my example the laptop computer is playing the role of hardware sound module.

plugin delay comp can only work on things already recorded, since theres no way to know what a player is gonna play before they play it, unless its me and then you know its one of 2 licks alternating. it takes all the data and lines it up post longest latency, so if you have a track with 1 plugin and another with 8 both tracks will be aligned at the 8 plugin timing.

so basically its just delaying things.


aside from that theres ways of adjusting midi tempo to fit things you recorded freely without metronome. time warp in cubase and nuendo (not audio warp cause thats for wav tracks) lets you line up the midi tempo to what you have already played, first youd lock the track or tracks played and then youd use time warp to drag the barlines to where they should be.

[beyond]

reflekshun,

I totally agree with your professional expectations. And stop listening to this acidwhatever guy.

I would like to inform you, that the midi timing problems you experience when you record midi - you hear your performance fine, but the recording is different, shifted, jittered timing, is a common PC/Windows/multi core/Cubase problem...

The problem is that the system clocks used for midi can be drifted, wrong, absent. A lot of hosts esp Cubase will take wrong timestamps from bad midi drivers and put them into effect after you are done recording and screw up your performance..

I would suspect this first. If your total latency (asio + plugins) is under 5-10ms you should be fine in that department (5-10ms is like hearing your electric guitar from the amp on stage), with easy solution of disabling the latent plugs, whereas the system clock problems and wrong midi timestamps is a nightmare to solve.. and very unprofessional indeed. KVR is also a very unprofessional place.

[Scotrick]

This is a very interesting thread, in that the OP mentioned that the problem is being caused by certain effects plug-ins that introduce large latencies.

Most of the advice given here, in fact, from my read, damn near all of it, is great advice, but I want to repeat one thing that's already been mentioned:

turn off the delay inducing effects while recording.

I know it's a bother, but Reverbs and Compressors (the two most common delay inducing plug-in types?) are for the final mixdown, exactly because of the fact that they introduce so much latency it's hard to record with them inline.

I know it sucks to have to turn off a bunch of effects if you're near the end of a mix, but the basic rule of mixing is that as you create your songs, you end up increasing the sample buffer to take the load off your computer... then if you realize your arrangement needs another part, you have to temporarily offload some of those effects...

in your case, using Cubase, you might look into Freezing the plug-in that's causing the most latency, which would allow you to still hear the correct mix to maintain your vibe

Good luck, lots of cool advice in this thread, but sifting through it all is tough, too many ways of accomplishing the same thing.

If you don't suffer from a latency induced MIDI timing problem when you first start a song, then you have your MOTU interface correctly set-up within Cubase, so there's no need to worry about the system time stamp stuff, but if you have the latency problems with no plug-ins on an empty project, then you do need to worry.

Start there if you have problems. If not, then try some of the advice from the thread, but to me, the simplest advice is the one I repeated: freeze or turn off the plug-in causing the offending time delay just while you record that one part.

Best of luck.

[reflekshun]

Wow, okay now I'm really starting to get some good advice.

alabamian: The freeze idea is fantastic - THANKYOU. I didn't think of this at all, and it is definitely a fantastic solution. (or even rendering as many latency inducing audio channels before moving onto something else).

I'm glad to hear that there are others who are aware of this problem I am talking about, and understand it

I would like to inform you, that the midi timing problems you experience when you record midi - you hear your performance fine, but the recording is different, shifted, jittered timing, is a common PC/Windows/multi core/Cubase problem...

Beyond: Thankyou! perhaps I have posted this in the wrong forum, but I'm glad you have given me exactly the kind of advice and information I have been searching for.

Fortunately I have checked and there are no timestamp problems, also latency is 5.3ms. So my problem is of the universal kind

Once again very appreciative of your replies, the last two in particular, very informative and practical solutions everyone in the same boat should take the advice.