Ableton Forum

I am sequencing hardware synths alongside drum samples from simplers, and I've determined the best way to do this is simply not to use any latency-inducing plug ins whatsoever until I'm done tracking and the tune is ready to be mixed-

But to add some flavor in the mix while writing-Which plug ins in are actually ZERO LATENCY? Is compressor if there is 0ms look ahead? Auto filter? Any third party AUs or VST actually zero latency?
Thanks!

I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that unless the plug-in has an explicit lookahead parameter -- like the limiter or compressor -- then you can safely assume that it has zero samples of latency.

The only exceptions I can imagine offhand would be the EQ in high-quality mode (that is, if the high-quality EQ is a linear EQ) or the vocoder. Those might use FFTs, which ordinarily require some windowing and therefore latency.

So: basically comp and limiter when the lookahead is not set to 0 ms; and possibly the
EQ in high quality mode, and the vocoder.

That's just a guess of course, I haven't tried to measure the plugs' latencies.

-Luddy

Thanks. There was a page in the manual about this, but maybe it was removed,.. I can't find it again. I think any effect in hi-quality mode has latency also.... Can't remember....
Anyone?

bump.