Certain plugins in the effects chain (i.e, the Multiband EQ by Steve Harris and the TAP Pitch Shifter) cause a small, but audible delay in the track. This is absolutely ruinous for rhythmic compositions. So far, I’ve come up with two less-than-ideal solutions:
Add the same plugin to the effects chain in every other track, so they all have the same delay.
Move the all sounds in the track one bar back, then add a simple delay of (x-y), where x is the length in milliseconds of one bar and y is the perceived delay caused by the original plugin.
These are both bad.
Throw me a bone here, Ardour community-- aren’t DAW’s supposed to automagically buffer the delay caused by effect plugins? Am I overlooking a checkbox somewhere? Is the plugin itself garbage? I just want to make music. How do I fix this.
Thanks for the reply, Paul! I did not know about the Artificial Latency plugin. I hope the devs fix delay compensation for busses soon because that could be a potential show-stopper…
if the plugin reports its latency, then … if you add it to a track, Ardour will compensate. If you add it to a bus Ardour will not be able to do so in any current version (it is planned for a future version).
if the plugin does not report its latency, then there is nothing that can be done automatically. You can estimate/measure the latency and add an instance of the Artificial Latency plugin from Steve Harris (which reports latency but doesn’t actually cause any).
Note that it took ProTools roughly 7 major releases before they provided any delay compensation at all.
I recently discovered this problem as well, and personally (if I can), I’m just going to stay away from plugins that cause audible latency when placed on tracks. (I’m assuming that those, like Paul mentioned, don’t report their latencies.)
So far, I’ve noticed latencies with the two plugins you mentioned, so Multiband EQ by Steve Harris and TAP Pitch Shifter. Are there any more to add to the list?