Automatic Latency Compensation

Well, hello everybody! Newbie on the forum…

No-one fancy or important, but nevertheless someone with a question:

Is Ardour supposed to do automatic latency compensation for its plugins?

I’ve been demoing Ardour 4 64 bit on a Windows 10 64 bit laptop.

I noticed that quite a few of my plugins (a.o. Waves, Elysia, TDR, Acustica) weren’t compensated for latency they introduced on the track. That could lead to phasing problems when for instance doing a drum submix. I noticed each track offers the option of manually adjusting for latency, but so far I’ve only seen SlickEQ reporting its own latency in samples when switching from “full” to “eco” mode.

Could somebody tell me if this is a bug in Ardour or related to something else?

Ardour will compensate for latency in plugins with 3 provisos:

  1. The plugin must correctly report its latency, via the usual mechanism for whatever format the plugin uses
  2. The latency compensation will only be adjusted at transport stop
  3. Latency compensation works only on tracks, not busses

Other than these provisos, there are no known issues with latency compensation due to plugins.

Thank you, Paul, for your quick reply. I fully understand what you’re saying.

What confuses me is this:

Different plugins from the same manufacturer behave differently - Waves Renaissance Comp introduces phasing when on a parallel track, whereas Renaissance Reverb (turned 100% dry) does not. Same goes for Plugin Alliance - Elysia MusEQ goes phasing, Brainworx BX Cleansweep and BX Opto do not (I’m assuming Elysia and Brainworx use the same platform/framework, might be wrong here). Could this solely be a plugin manufacturer’s issue?

On top of that: a quick comparison in Reaper 5.04 (please, don’t flame me!) does not give me phasing issues at all, even when switching DURING playback.

I’ve been testing with a parallel track with duplicate playlist as well as with a parallel buss. I get the same phasing “tone”.

You’d have to get a debug build (nightly.ardour.org), and run from the command line with the -D latency switches. You will then get a lot of output about latency calculations, including individual reports from each plugin. Don’t post it here, email to the ardour-dev list (see the Support tab above right).

OK, thank you, I will look into that.

I have never run a program from the command line, though. Let alone with a -D switch. Will have to look that up first.

Might take some time. If I find something, I’ll post on the devlist.

So, I’ve emailed the ardour-dev list.

Hope I’m onto something, would hate to waste your time…

Greetings, Arjan

My message is still being held, wat gives?