Grouping returntracks with regular audiotracks without delay?

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TubaTill
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Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2023 10:20 am

Grouping returntracks with regular audiotracks without delay?

Post by TubaTill » Thu Feb 02, 2023 10:54 am

I really like using the Returntracks for Reverb Echo and other Effects but I have a Problem with my workflow. I want to group the return tracks with my regular audiotracks to process (compress, eq, saturate) everything together. I know that I can do this on the masterbus but i need to do it more specifically, like grouping all synths (having different amounts of each synth going into the reverb, also with automation) with the reverb coming from a returntrack and then compressing everything together. When I send a return to a normal audiotrack instead of the master, there is a short delay which makes this technique unuseable. So to get the functionality i want I can do a "manual send", create an audiotrack for each send (utility on that track acts as the new send knob), send the track i want to send to the effect to that audiotrack, group those tracks together, put an effect on the group and then group that group with the original tracks (the synths for example), this does work without delay but it takes ages to setup and because every track i make is a bit different so I cant make a template to save time.

If there was no delay when sending returntracks to audiotracks it would work like i want it to. Because it is possible to set this up manually with the same functionality i want it makes me wonder why there is a delay when sending returntracks to audiotracks. I have an analog mixer and the technique works fine there. Does anyone have an idea how to get around this problem, maybe there is some max4live plugin that fixes the routing?

Angstrom
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Joined: Mon Oct 04, 2004 2:22 pm
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Re: Grouping returntracks with regular audiotracks without delay?

Post by Angstrom » Thu Feb 02, 2023 1:12 pm

When routing return trracks to regular tracks it deactivates the latency compensation because you just made it possible to send the output to itself (a circular feedback). Live can't calculate the latency offset of a circle..

To fix this; right click the group/destination's sends ( the sends on the group) and deactivate them from the context menu.
This tells live that you will never send the out to the in, so it doesn't need to deactivate the calculation . In this situation the latency offset will be calculated correctly. Unless they changed something since the last time I checked this. !

TubaTill
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2023 10:20 am

Re: Grouping returntracks with regular audiotracks without delay?

Post by TubaTill » Thu Feb 02, 2023 4:59 pm

That fixed it, thank you so much! :D

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