EDIT: Testing to come about Live's pdf and parallel comp

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
DangerousDave
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Location: LA

Re: EDIT: Tested lives PDC with parallel comp - success

Post by DangerousDave » Fri Nov 21, 2014 4:03 am

Ok, I got scared for a sec because I thought I figured out a way to prove that it doesn't compensate but it does.

I used like thirty compressors (set to a ratio of one so they wouldn't do anything) and the tracks still synced up fine. You can actually hear live delay the whole song when you hit play, obviously to compensate for all the compressors.

Finally a positive story about Live's PDC.
Leisure was right,
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JoshG567
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Re: EDIT: Testing to come about Live's pdf and parallel comp

Post by JoshG567 » Fri Nov 21, 2014 8:35 am

I should probably start a new thread, or even get on the phone with support, but delay compensation threw me off badly just an hour ago.

I use the LP95 step sequencer on a clip in the 1st MIDI track that routes to a 2nd with a drum rack, let's call that Electric. I've got a 3rd MIDI track that takes all MIDI from Electric (2) and sends it to yet another 4th MIDI bus where I have an instrument rack that sorts the drum MIDI into kick, snare, etc. chains discretely. Step 5 is a series of separate MIDI tracks for kick, snare, etc. that take inputs from the chains in the 4th track and eventually funnel into a 6th final track 'Acoustic' where my Superior Drummer VST runs.

It's circuitous, but I have my reasons. If you follow me up to here this is where it gets weird: Obviously MIDI on the step sequenced clip in step 1 is perfectly quantized. By the time the MIDI is routed all the way to Acoustic, though, when Delay Comp is turned ON there is audible delay between hats triggered by Electric and Acoustic. Turn Delay Comp OFF and they're in sync.

When I print the MIDI to arrangement I have the following observations for MIDI hitting the tracks in step 5:

1) There's a 6 ms latency when Reduce Latency While Monitoring is disabled.
2) There's a -6 ms latency when Reduce Latency While Monitoring is enabled.
3) There's a 0 ms latency when Delay Compensation is disabled.

I don't understand, but at least I've noticed. I just have to print my MIDI with PDC off so I don't need to run the realtime MIDI bridge tracks to get multimic acoustic and electric drum sounds together. I can think of a few projects I'll have to revisit over this.

ian_halsall
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Re: Is parellel compression negatively effect with Live's PDC?

Post by ian_halsall » Fri Nov 21, 2014 8:41 am

roringtonsmithe wrote:I'd sooner do Pcomp either in a rack or using wet/dry knob.
The nice thing about using a rack is that if you think plugin latency/PDC is going to fuck your phasing up you can use a copy of the plugin on the dry chain and set it 100% dry.

78% of the time it works every time.

I don't trust returns for tight time based stuff. I have trust issues.
That's a Colemanballs right there!

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