Drum Machine Designer Latency Issues

Hello all,

I try and avoid posting in here unless I'm really stuck with something, so as not to clog up the forum with the same questions over and over. I've tried to scrub this forum through the hundreds of "latency issue" topics, and although there is one single thread about DMD, it doesn't seem to discuss the same latency issue. If someone knows of a thread where this has already been discussed, my sincerest apologies!

So, here we go:

This has been happening for some time and I cannot figure out why. I'm only getting latency when recording MIDI through the DMD bus. This does not happen when I'm recording on the individual drum tracks that are nested within DMD, but if I want to record a quick 4-on-the-floor idea with kick, hats, and snare, in one go on the DMD bus, this is where my issue lies. My drums always get recorded in on the off-beat, without fail. What's bizarre, is that when I'm recording MIDI notes on a synth plugin, everything is recorded nicely on the beat (and even a little ahead of the beat, because of my timing). But with the drums, everything is always on the off-beat and I have to constantly drag the notes back onto the downbeat. Whether it's a massive project or a new fresh template, it doesn't seem to matter. Whether I'm on the lowest buffer setting (32) or the highest (1024), this does not change the issue. And I'm consistently on low latency mode throughout all of this.

For example: I'm using Drum Machine Designer in a fresh project, and I'm just trying to record a kick drum, four on the floor kind of thing. Quantize is "off" for all these examples.

This here is the result of recording at 32 buffer setting, Low Latency Mode on:

This here is the result of recording at 1024 buffer setting, Low Latency Mode on:

And to compare, here I'm recording a bass line at 32 buffer setting, Low Latency Mode on:

And the bass line at 1024 buffer setting, Low Latency Mode on (bizarrely, I'm even MORE ahead of the beat here):

And finally, here (still on 1024 buffer setting) I've overlayed the MIDI to show the recording of the kick separately on its own track within the DMD bus (top notes), v.s. the lower notes being recorded directly on the DMD bus track itself:

So, of course, I know the easy answer is: "just don't use the DMD bus and record directly on each individual drum track." However, if I'm trying to record a whole drum idea, it becomes kind of annoying to constantly have to go to each track and record individually. I mean, it's not the end of the world, but I just want to understand what's going on here.

Has anyone dealt with this issue? Many thanks in advance for any help and suggestions!

I've got exactly the same issue and the same observations.

Latency when using DMD by the bus.. i m trigging percussions kits i made myself.... the only "solution" i found is to record a click on the beat at the beggin and then just drag all the notes... but it s clearly annoying....hope there will be a fix soon...

DJ Alfil

Ah, good to know I'm not the only one. The lack of any information (or posts) online made me think that this was either not a wide-spread issue, or there are no solutions. Could also be that not many people use DMD for triggering samples via the bus.

In any case, I also hope there's a fix soon, but I think it'll be up to us to send this bug feedback to Logic directly: https://www.apple.com/feedback/logic-pro.html

That being said, the latter questions in the feedback form ("Do you play a musical instrument? tee-hee") makes it feel like you're signing up for a newsletter as opposed to giving proper feedback. It seems kind of flakey, and makes me wonder whether they even look at what people are sending in.

Hey there,

I'm running into the exact same problem. So just checking in if there was any progress on this issue. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Yeah, seems to be a(n LLM) bug when recording midi to track stacks... 

PDC not working when recording to Track Stacks using LLM

Best work around will be to remove the adaptive limiter instances.  Put them back later when you mix.  LLM is supposed to disable them for you, but apparently its either not doing that when you use a summing stack or perhaps it is, but its not calculating record offset correctly based on that fact.

if you remove the adaptive limiter and any other latent plugins, then do your tracking. Save two presets to make it easier to go back and forth between mixing with the limiter and tracking without.

unfortunately your workaround doesn't work over here. I'm using an instance of an 808 and it doesn't have an adaptive limiter on there. removing all the plugins also doesn't change anything.

did you actually remove all the plugins?  disabling them is not enough.

Please describe more precisely exactly the results you get.  Are events recorded early or late?

are you record enabling the summing track or one or more of the individual tracks inside it?

do you have any other Aux trucks you are bussing to and do any of them, including the master track have any plugins on them?

etc

I've tried both, disabling the plugins and removing them altogether. The events are always late and I'm in LLM. Also I'm recording on the summing track. the individual tracks are fine as is as already discussed by the OP above. 

thanks for your help!

If you removed all the plugins, the LLM is irrelevant.  Do you have plugins on other tracks, and any aux busses with plugins, any plugins on the master track?  Are you using any external midi?  Any side chains?

Also in your audio prefs, what is your record offset setting?

ok, I've checked again and I'm feeding the drum summing into another sum, which had an instance of a limiter. when I removed the limiter the latency vanished! 

thanks for your help!