Delay compensation for CV tools / CV instrument, can't get stuff in sync

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aluedt
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Apr 13, 2020 9:38 am

Delay compensation for CV tools / CV instrument, can't get stuff in sync

Post by aluedt » Mon Apr 13, 2020 10:27 am

Delay compensation for CV tools / CV instrument, can't get stuff in sync

It looks like there is no delay compensation in place for CV tools / CV instrument as for, e.g., external instrument is. I'm wondering how you can get this play in sync anyhow.

Trying to follow the recommendations from the CV tools FAQ I tried to reduce latency and, further following recommendations from elsewhere, I also experimented with negative track delays for the CV instrument. I found no working setup for the with my Tascam US20x20 plus expert sleepers ES-3. I don't think the issues I experience are related to this specific audio interface. I also don't have problems with delay elsewhere, everything is in tight sync when I use the external instrument plugin, and I am using a lot of outboard gear here. Just with CV tools / CV instrument I experience major problems getting stuff in sync.

Experimenting with buffer size:
Doing some experimental recordings with different buffer sizes I found that finally the delay in my recording is always more or less exactly matching the "overall latency" as displayed in Abletons audio settings. This seems reasonable as it would be just the time required to output CV to the modular plus the input latency to get audio back into the DAW. But how can one compensate this?
Negative track delays have no effect then (unless you have other sources of latency in place elsewhere, see next paragraph). Lowest possible buffer size here is 32 samples, which gives 7.55ms latency at 44.1khz sample rate. Of course this would be kind of tolerable, but such small buffers cause other problems for me. Anyway, shouldn't this be just handled by Abletons delay compentation just as for, e.g., the external instrument plugin where everything just works here? Why is there no delay compensation in place for CV instrument and other CV tools stuff? Am I missing something?

Strange behaviour of negtative track delays:
Further experimenting with negative track delays I found that in a minimal setup with CV instrument only such negative delays have no effect at all. But I further found that, when you have other plugins in the project that cause some delay, negative track delays on a CV instrument track then have an effect but only up to this "base" latency from the last paragraph. Higher values of negative track delay again have no effect then.
So at least this led me to _always_ set a very high negative delay like -500ms on every CV instrument track which then keeps me at the "minimum" delay as described in the paragraph above. But this also feels like an ugly workaround for an actual shortcoming in Abletons implementation of track delays and the behaviour I found is also not documented in any way.

Working with other plugins that cause whatever latency - delay compentation everywhere but not for CV tools / CV instruments:
As described above. While delay compentation just works elsewhere, it does not for CV tools / CV instrument. So whenever you put some plugin with latency in the project, everything stays in sync while CV tools / CV instrument does not and you have to calculate and set delays manually. This is really kind of annoying and makes CV tools hardly usable at all I think.

So am I missing something? Do other people experience the same?
What are your workarounds for this?

And Abeton: Are you planning some improvements of CV tools with respect to delay compentation?

Best
--Andree

Noktai
Posts: 10
Joined: Tue Oct 09, 2012 7:37 am

Re: Delay compensation for CV tools / CV instrument, can't get stuff in sync

Post by Noktai » Tue Apr 28, 2020 1:12 am

Yes, i can confirm that.
Already post it in the beta forum.
And here in the Forum a view month ago when CV tools came out. Unfortunately nobody was Interested to fix this BUG.
Fun fact is i never have to adjust any others plugin latency manual because every thing included the plugin "external instrument" works perfect.
I wonder why nobody was seriously testing this before it came out. Its such a big game changer over MIDI but it looks like we are the last people who use CV/Gate Gear in timing relevant productions. Thanks for your post. --Andree

The only workaround at the moment is to buy the 10 Years old Software from Expert Sleepers called "Silent Way" wich runs perfect in timing if you use it with hardware insert plugin.

Please Ableton fix this.

Kai

[jur]
Site Admin
Posts: 5310
Joined: Mon Jun 01, 2015 3:04 pm
Location: Ableton

Re: Delay compensation for CV tools / CV instrument, can't get stuff in sync

Post by [jur] » Tue Apr 28, 2020 6:15 pm

aluedt wrote:
Mon Apr 13, 2020 10:27 am
delay in my recording is always more or less exactly matching the "overall latency" as displayed in Abletons audio settings. This seems reasonable as it would be just the time required to output CV to the modular plus the input latency to get audio back into the DAW. But how can one compensate this?
I don't think this is something possible in the reality we live in. :wink:

But, generally speaking, latency compensation is a quite overcomplicated thing to deal with (and I'm clearly not educate enough on the topic to be of any real help).
I for example never suffered from this because I almost never use 3rd party plugins. We did of course test CV Tools extensively before releasing it, but there's just an infinite use cases.
If the CV Tools FAQ doesn't help enough, please write to support@ableton.com
We're absolutely willing to solve any possible issue. Sorry for the hassle.
Ableton Forum Moderator

charlybeck
Posts: 114
Joined: Sat Sep 18, 2010 1:42 pm

Re: Delay compensation for CV tools / CV instrument, can't get stuff in sync

Post by charlybeck » Fri May 01, 2020 2:47 pm

[jur] wrote:
Tue Apr 28, 2020 6:15 pm
aluedt wrote:
Mon Apr 13, 2020 10:27 am
delay in my recording is always more or less exactly matching the "overall latency" as displayed in Abletons audio settings. This seems reasonable as it would be just the time required to output CV to the modular plus the input latency to get audio back into the DAW. But how can one compensate this?
I don't think this is something possible in the reality we live in. :wink:

But, generally speaking, latency compensation is a quite overcomplicated thing to deal with (and I'm clearly not educate enough on the topic to be of any real help).
I for example never suffered from this because I almost never use 3rd party plugins. We did of course test CV Tools extensively before releasing it, but there's just an infinite use cases.
If the CV Tools FAQ doesn't help enough, please write to support@ableton.com
We're absolutely willing to solve any possible issue. Sorry for the hassle.
Well it should be not black magic.... It's just requesting the master track from the lom and - if present - request the latency of the master track.

Behind the scene
This latency the maximum latency of parallel signal paths where each path latency is the sum of all plugin latencies in the subpath. That is allready calculated by live which must keep track of plugin latency compensation anyway. Finally the latency of the audio driver is added. In v9 there was a big cleanup regarding this and since then latency compensaton is much better. (Thogh routing a return track to a normal track still causes issues sometimes) (Just the question of definition wether one wants to include the latency of the driver's audio output, i'd say yes since live knows which output is choosen,)

Conclusion

But all this not important, i think live can provide the single latency value of the master track.

The cv output must be delayed by this value and then everything would be perfectly in sync. It's just the quetion wether this info is available through the lom.

Proove me wrong ;)

I just wrote some words about latency compensation in a blog of mine:
https://karlchenscoderdasein.blogspot.c ... graph.html

PS: I assume you use an extra audio out for the cv out? You of course must substract the latency of the audio output. This latency is the buffer size of the audio output. Just to be really exact. But i think that the major part of latency is from vst plugins. If you use FabFilter in Phaselinear mode max you get delays of a few seconds (!). The driver latency on good systems is marginal.

REfreshing is an issue.... Because the latency may change evertime cyou change plugin configuration... Should be still possible to request the value fast enough from an lom object. I thnk only resolving paths is slow (?) If you get the value on each cv out cycle you don't need to be refreshed. Maybe there is also a observer support for this value?

In any case it is possible to solve. Maybe it requires one or two accepted feature requests by ableton...

Noktai
Posts: 10
Joined: Tue Oct 09, 2012 7:37 am

Re: Delay compensation for CV tools / CV instrument, can't get stuff in sync

Post by Noktai » Mon May 04, 2020 11:12 pm

[jur] wrote:
Tue Apr 28, 2020 6:15 pm
aluedt wrote:
Mon Apr 13, 2020 10:27 am
delay in my recording is always more or less exactly matching the "overall latency" as displayed in Abletons audio settings. This seems reasonable as it would be just the time required to output CV to the modular plus the input latency to get audio back into the DAW. But how can one compensate this?
I don't think this is something possible in the reality we live in. :wink:

But, generally speaking, latency compensation is a quite overcomplicated thing to deal with (and I'm clearly not educate enough on the topic to be of any real help).
I for example never suffered from this because I almost never use 3rd party plugins. We did of course test CV Tools extensively before releasing it, but there's just an infinite use cases.
If the CV Tools FAQ doesn't help enough, please write to support@ableton.com
We're absolutely willing to solve any possible issue. Sorry for the hassle.
Thanks for answering to the post.
There is only one plugin in my setup wich makes latency problems and this is cv tools.
I am beta testing for some companies and there is not a single other plugin wich makes latency problems .
At the moment i do the same thing ( controlling my hardware via audio signals) with expert sleepers plugin silent way in Live ( it’s the same idea just 10 years old) via external inserts, but this is just a workaround. I really love to use cv tools und use it as it full potential.

I will try to send a massage to the support guys.

Looking forward

[jur]
Site Admin
Posts: 5310
Joined: Mon Jun 01, 2015 3:04 pm
Location: Ableton

Re: Delay compensation for CV tools / CV instrument, can't get stuff in sync

Post by [jur] » Tue May 05, 2020 2:15 am

Noktai wrote:
Mon May 04, 2020 11:12 pm
I will try to send a massage to the support guys.
Yes please do that; I'm forwarding on why end too.
Ableton Forum Moderator

Noktai
Posts: 10
Joined: Tue Oct 09, 2012 7:37 am

Re: Delay compensation for CV tools / CV instrument, can't get stuff in sync

Post by Noktai » Wed May 06, 2020 2:53 pm

[jur] wrote:
Tue May 05, 2020 2:15 am
[quote=Noktai post_id=<a href="tel:1775005">1775005</a> time=<a href="tel:1588633958">1588633958</a> user_id=242250]
I will try to send a massage to the support guys.
Yes please do that; I'm forwarding on why end too.
[/quote]

Thanks 🙏

Noktai
Posts: 10
Joined: Tue Oct 09, 2012 7:37 am

Re: Delay compensation for CV tools / CV instrument, can't get stuff in sync

Post by Noktai » Fri May 15, 2020 5:53 pm

aluedt wrote:
Mon Apr 13, 2020 10:27 am
Delay compensation for CV tools / CV instrument, can't get stuff in sync

It looks like there is no delay compensation in place for CV tools / CV instrument as for, e.g., external instrument is. I'm wondering how you can get this play in sync anyhow.

Trying to follow the recommendations from the CV tools FAQ I tried to reduce latency and, further following recommendations from elsewhere, I also experimented with negative track delays for the CV instrument. I found no working setup for the with my Tascam US20x20 plus expert sleepers ES-3. I don't think the issues I experience are related to this specific audio interface. I also don't have problems with delay elsewhere, everything is in tight sync when I use the external instrument plugin, and I am using a lot of outboard gear here. Just with CV tools / CV instrument I experience major problems getting stuff in sync.

Experimenting with buffer size:
Doing some experimental recordings with different buffer sizes I found that finally the delay in my recording is always more or less exactly matching the "overall latency" as displayed in Abletons audio settings. This seems reasonable as it would be just the time required to output CV to the modular plus the input latency to get audio back into the DAW. But how can one compensate this?
Negative track delays have no effect then (unless you have other sources of latency in place elsewhere, see next paragraph). Lowest possible buffer size here is 32 samples, which gives 7.55ms latency at 44.1khz sample rate. Of course this would be kind of tolerable, but such small buffers cause other problems for me. Anyway, shouldn't this be just handled by Abletons delay compentation just as for, e.g., the external instrument plugin where everything just works here? Why is there no delay compensation in place for CV instrument and other CV tools stuff? Am I missing something?

Strange behaviour of negtative track delays:
Further experimenting with negative track delays I found that in a minimal setup with CV instrument only such negative delays have no effect at all. But I further found that, when you have other plugins in the project that cause some delay, negative track delays on a CV instrument track then have an effect but only up to this "base" latency from the last paragraph. Higher values of negative track delay again have no effect then.
So at least this led me to _always_ set a very high negative delay like -500ms on every CV instrument track which then keeps me at the "minimum" delay as described in the paragraph above. But this also feels like an ugly workaround for an actual shortcoming in Abletons implementation of track delays and the behaviour I found is also not documented in any way.

Working with other plugins that cause whatever latency - delay compentation everywhere but not for CV tools / CV instruments:
As described above. While delay compentation just works elsewhere, it does not for CV tools / CV instrument. So whenever you put some plugin with latency in the project, everything stays in sync while CV tools / CV instrument does not and you have to calculate and set delays manually. This is really kind of annoying and makes CV tools hardly usable at all I think.

So am I missing something? Do other people experience the same?
What are your workarounds for this?

And Abeton: Are you planning some improvements of CV tools with respect to delay compentation?

Best
--Andree
Ableton Support send me an email:

Indeed this is not a bug but rather the absence of Delay Compensation for CV Tool and it is expected.
You can submit this as a feature request.
The best place to submit this is on our Beta community site, Centercode.

Please support my feature request:

https://ableton.centercode.com/project/ ... 32ddc78%7D

le barde
Posts: 24
Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2008 6:32 pm
Contact:

Re: Delay compensation for CV tools / CV instrument, can't get stuff in sync

Post by le barde » Mon Nov 16, 2020 8:42 am

Glad I found this post... I was becoming crazy trying everything possible with no success. Encountering the exact same results as described in the first post.
Indeed Silent Way plugins do work better here...
It's unfortunate because CV tools are very handy... but just won't do the job unless you can deal with super low latency on your soundcard. Not my case as I use very frequently around 20 I/Os + many plugins.

Hope this can be updated.

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