Daniel Harvey

This is THE WAY. Great tip. +Will add that I've observed the sidechain trigger latency sample delay value is equal to the sum of all sample latency induced by plugins in the entire signal path up-to the sidechain compressor (but not after). So, you can add up the number of samples each plugin in the chain leading up to the sidechain compression (or LFO-tool, Volumeshaper, duck...), then program the sample delay to have that value, and it will line right up audibly. The visual feedback of meters is still off, though, but at least it sounds accurate. I find when mixing with large sessions with lots of plugins & multiple sidechaining elements I will need several sample delays in a row to provide enough delay on the ghost for the longest threads of processing...and I will need several ghost kicks to trigger sidechaining of various elements along the way, each ghost with a different amount of sample delay (one with zero, one with ~5k, one with ~10k...honestly up to ~30k for the final one hitting the end of the entire mix routing, it adds up...).

After reviewing this thread, I have determined that Waves One Knob Filter, when enabled, is created an audible 'pop' when I press play. The 'pop' does disappear when I disable OneKnob. Very odd. Any ideas on how to eliminate?

THE PROBLEM: When I press "play", the playback is audibly mis-aligned (some parts play too soon, others too late....) THE SITUATION: I have a very large, CPU demanding session: When I listen to the playback (with no sidechains set), it sounds perfect. Therefore, Plugin Delay Compensation (PDC) (which is set to "All") is doing it's job, perfectly. That's good. My CPU is keeping up, & PDC is keeping up. When I start using various Busses, to sidechain other busses, the audio I am hearing during playback is not in sync (some elements sound early, others late...) All of my layers are processed individually, and are then having their Outputs set to their respective Bus (i.e. 5-pad-layers go Out to one Bus for further group-processing, while 5-lead-layers go Out to their own separate Bus for their own group-processing). *still, audible playback is good, even with latency-inducing-plugins everywhere...it's all synced OK* I wanted to then use the "Lead Bus" to sidechain-compress the "Pad Bus". To do this, I used a send on the "Lead Bus", to send it to a new "Trigger Bus", and brought the fader of this new "Trigger Bus" down to -infinity (kept it's output set to Output 1-2....I did not change it to "No Output", as my understanding is that doing so can throw off PDC.) I set up several of these "Bus to sidechain another Bus" scenarios in the session, and they are definitely causing the audio-playback to be out-of-sync, as some busses sounds are not aligned with other busses sounds How do I fix this audible mis-alignment of playback, so it syncs back up? I have read many threads on here, where peoples concern wasn't the audible playback sync, but rather the timing of the sidechain-trigger-signal causing the "ducking" effect to happen several milli-seconds late. That is a similar type of issue, however, it is different from my issue, as I am HEARING things out of sync during playing (the problem then corrects itself when I remove all the sidechains, which of course is not the goal...) Looking forward to hearing your thoughts, thank you!!!