Audio recording random delay problem

[jasonhou]

Hello,

 

Recently a friend said he's switching to Protools because Logic's recording delay problem drove him crazy. He said his guitar playing were randomly delayed after recording so he had to manually drag the region to align the timing.

 

The strange problem is that the delay time is not constant but varies every time. Sometimes the timing is accurate and sometimes it could be delayed for almost a bar. I taught him how to use direct monitoring and made sure his recording delay setting is at 0 but still no luck. He's using a Prism Lyra interface with Logic 10.4.8. Have anyone seen similar problem?

[David Nahmani]

No, I haven't experienced that and I can understand how that would drive one crazy.

 

But switching to Pro Tools because of that? That sounds like an isolated issue that can and should be troubleshot. For example depending on the plug-ins that are used, the latency and plug-in delay settings etc.

[triplets]

Recently a friend said he's switching to Protools because Logic's recording delay problem drove him crazy. He said his guitar playing were randomly delayed after recording so he had to manually drag the region to align the timing.

 

If he messed with Logic's preferences and not knowing the consequences, it certainly is a nightmare.

Tell your friend to post on this forum and explain his problem so we can suss it out.

[jasonhou]

No, I haven't experienced that and I can understand how that would drive one crazy.

 

But switching to Pro Tools because of that? That sounds like an isolated issue that can and should be troubleshot. For example depending on the plug-ins that are used, the latency and plug-in delay settings etc.

He told me that he also know a few people who encountered similar problem recording in Logic. I think it's worth investigating. I will get more information from him and post here.

[jasonhou]

Recently a friend said he's switching to Protools because Logic's recording delay problem drove him crazy. He said his guitar playing were randomly delayed after recording so he had to manually drag the region to align the timing.

 

If he messed with Logic's preferences and not knowing the consequences, it certainly is a nightmare.

Tell your friend to post on this forum and explain his problem so we can suss it out.

Yesterday I checked that his "recording delay" and "delay compensation" are set to default. I taught him how to record with direct monitoring and he then recorded 5 clips - 3 were fine but 2 were out of sync. He's a good guitar player so he didn't mess up the timing while playing.

What other preferences should be looked out for?

[triplets]

Yesterday I checked that his "recording delay" and "delay compensation" are set to default. I taught him how to record with direct monitoring and he then recorded 5 clips - 3 were fine but 2 were out of sync. He's a good guitar player so he didn't mess up the timing while playing.

What other preferences should be looked out for?

 

What is his setup?

Why the need for direct monitoring?

Software monitoring in Logic is great with a 64 buffer and no audible latency.

[jasonhou]

Yesterday I checked that his "recording delay" and "delay compensation" are set to default. I taught him how to record with direct monitoring and he then recorded 5 clips - 3 were fine but 2 were out of sync. He's a good guitar player so he didn't mess up the timing while playing.

What other preferences should be looked out for?

 

What is his setup?

Why the need for direct monitoring?

Software monitoring in Logic is great with a 64 buffer and no audible latency.

 

He has two studios with different audio interfaces (Prism Lyra 2 and Antelope Orion 32HD, all with latest drivers) and Logic 10.4.8. The problem occurs on both systems.

He said with a brand new project and no plugins the problem remains. He tested with just one guitar track, timing didn't align with the grid.

He installed Protools recently just for tracking, since Logic drove him crazy. He said with PT there were no such problem.

The use of direct monitoring is just to make sure he plays right on time. I saw the takes, some are delayed by a quarter note. It's definitely not caused by his playing.

Recording delay is all set at 0. If it's a recording delay problem, it shouldn't be delayed at a random value every time.

[triplets]

Do you know the signal flow?

Is it a mic'ed amp, an amp simulator plugin?

3rd party plugins going at the same time?

[jasonhou]

Do you know the signal flow?

Is it a mic'ed amp, an amp simulator plugin?

3rd party plugins going at the same time?

Just plugged straight into Lyra 2 interface. No plugin on the track, no plugin in session.

I told him to record a video to demonstrate the problem. I'll post it when he send over the video.

[kerochan]

I have witnessed a similar thing with Logic too.

 

After a recording a few bass and guitar tracks I tried to record a 2nd rhythm guitar track, played perfectly, but on playback its out of time, I though I was going crazy. I can see the wave form out of sync.

I found that going to Logic Preference, Audio, then unchecking CORE AUDIO, APPLY CHANGES, then re checking Core Audio, hit enable, then hitting Apply changes, sorted it, the previous recording was still out of sync, but all further recordings fine.

This is happened once or twice, been fine for quite a few months now. Baffled,

[jasonhou]

I have witnessed a similar thing with Logic too.

 

After a recording a few bass and guitar tracks I tried to record a 2nd rhythm guitar track, played perfectly, but on playback its out of time, I though I was going crazy. I can see the wave form out of sync.

I found that going to Logic Preference, Audio, then unchecking CORE AUDIO, APPLY CHANGES, then re checking Core Audio, hit enable, then hitting Apply changes, sorted it, the previous recording was still out of sync, but all further recordings fine.

This is happened once or twice, been fine for quite a few months now. Baffled,

 

It's good to know that someone has similar experience. I'll let me friend know about your method and see if it solves the problem.

[triplets]

What OSX version is he on, do you know?

[Cryptonym]

I have this problem too. Ive been using logic for over 12 years, and it started happening occasionally a few years ago, just randomly, as described above.  No rhyme or reason to it. Timing of tracked audio way off when played back.

Currently using logic 10.7.5 on a 2018 MBP running Monterey 12.6. I have a focusrite isapre also hooked in via ADAT to the Apollo but problem still occurs with this removed.

Very frustrating. I tried unchecking  the core audio enable box, applying then ticking again as described by kerochan but unfortunately no luck.

Will do it on different buffer settings too.

Any other suggestions?

cheers

Mike

[Stacio]

Everyone I know who records audio regularly in Logic Pro has this problem. I work on a few different combos of logic interfaces, computers in different studio setups and it happens on all of them.. Some days, it hardly happens at all, while other days it might happen 20 or 30 times in a 3 hour session.

It's been going on pretty much in all versions of LPX. I work with union musicians who are used to working in protools. It's very frustrating to have a really great take recorded, only to have it play back out of sync. You can try to line it up to make it right, but the chances of getting back to its recorded position, or even within 10 or 15 milliseconds, is slim. Rather than breaking down the flow and spending time discussing if it's a little ahead or behind, we generally just throw away what would be a good recording.

I have not experienced it during the initial recording of the multi track, which I always start at 0. It happens when we start to do the "fixes" with individual overdubs, even if the overdubs involve multiple players and their tracks. It may be if you start a recording from 0, it stays right. Or it may be that it only happens to rather short takes, or while you move to different locations to do the punch ins for overdubs. As Jasonhou mentions, it is tempting to move the recording portion of recording projects to protools and do the mixing in Logic. But I am a die hard and keep hoping the next version will fix it so I can keep the entire project in the same workspace.

Anyway, I'm hoping Apple will get to the bottom of this soon.

 

 

 

[sunbrother]

This happens to me a lot too.

I record without Software Monitoring. I turn it off and monitor through my mixer. After I record I have to manually move my recordings back in time. I’m assuming the delay corresponds to something, I just haven’t found out what yet.

I use Cycle Record for a lot of my takes so restarting Core Audio might be too little too late, but I’ll try that next time I see it.

[sunbrother]

Encountered it again. A 206ms delay, so it didn't correspond to anything my interface was doing. Toggling Core Audio did nothing. I noticed it occurred with MIDI recordings as well so I started digging through old posts about late MIDI recordings and found the answer:

Any recordings made inside a Track Stack will not account for project latency properly. With audio or MIDI. Even if you are not using Software Monitoring or are using Low Latency Monitoring. The recordings will always show up late and the amount is dependent on project latency.

What a gaffe on the Logic team's part...

[polanoid]

54 minutes ago, sunbrother said:

What a gaffe on the Logic team's part...

Did you report it via Apple's feedback page?

[polanoid]

1 hour ago, sunbrother said:

Any recordings made inside a Track Stack will not account for project latency properly. With audio or MIDI.

Can't even reproduce this here so I guess there's a bit more to it than just "recording inside a track stack". Where is your latency inducing plug-in inserted? Did you make sure Plug-In Latency Compensation is set to "All"? Can you post a screenshot of the project it happens in (Tracks Area and Mixer)?  Also, can you post a link to the "old post" you discovered?

Edited February 28 by polanoid

[sunbrother]

3 hours ago, polanoid said:

Did you report it via Apple's feedback page?

Yes

2 hours ago, polanoid said:

Can't even reproduce this here so I guess there's a bit more to it than just "recording inside a track stack". Where is your latency inducing plug-in inserted? Did you make sure Plug-In Latency Compensation is set to "All"? Can you post a screenshot of the project it happens in (Tracks Area and Mixer)?  Also, can you post a link to the "old post" you discovered?

I'm assuming you tried it with a large buffer and high project latency? Mine totals up to 206ms. It might be hard to notice if you only have a couple ms of project latency.

Plugin Latency Compensation: All

Latency inducing plug-ins are inserted throughout the project.

As for latency inducing plug-ins related to this specific track, there are none:

Track (No Inserts) -> Track Stack (Bus 9, No Inserts) -> Stereo Out (No Inserts)

Nothing is side chained to Bus 9 or the track in question.

Attached are the most relevant settings I could think of.

[sunbrother]

And here's the old thread I mentioned:

The thread has to do with MIDI but this issue occurs with audio and MIDI. The MIDI delay is exactly half the audio delay. If you can't reproduce it, there must be another precondition but the delays being a multiple of each other strikes me as a potential hint that it's related to a problem with correcting for playback latency.

I've got three projects right now that this happens in so I guess I'll reduce one down to a test case so Apple (and anyone here who's interested) can see what I'm seeing.

Edited February 29 by sunbrother

[oscwilde]

@sunbrother In your audio setting pix above....
Reason for such a high I/O buffer?
Any diff when LLM is active?
Assume you've tested by disconnecting the MOTU and just using internal Mac audio H/W?

From your sig....
Any diff when not running Rosetta?
Any possibility of installing/running a second bootable "test" drive with Sonoma?

[sunbrother]

39 minutes ago, oscwilde said:

@sunbrother In your audio setting pix above....
Reason for such a high I/O buffer?
Any diff when LLM is active?
Assume you've tested by disconnecting the MOTU and just using internal Mac audio H/W?

From your sig....
Any diff when not running Rosetta?
Any possibility of installing/running a second bootable "test" drive with Sonoma?

1. The large buffer is to avoid system overloads. I'm directly monitoring through my mixer so I don't care about monitoring latency. In the other DAWs I use, this seems to be a good approach.

2. No, Low Latency Monitoring makes no difference when this issue occurs.

3. I don't have a great way to test this issue with my internal Mac audio H/W. My Mac Studio is mounted in a rack. 

4. Testing in Native Logic was sort of fruitful. I can't really test the Track Stack component of the issue in Logic because so many of the plugins in my mix sessions just crash in Native Logic when it's a session created in Rosetta. With all the plugins gone, there was still a small predictable delay on recording audio and midi tracks. However, when I opened the simplified version of the session in Native it went away. When I opened it back up in Rosetta Logic the small remaining delay when recording was fixed there too. Not sure what to make of this. It would be more helpful to know whether or not the Track Stack issue was also fixed but none of the test cases I have will open in Native.

5. I don't have an extra hard drive for this and I'd prefer to get this figured out on Ventura since so much of my software does not support Sonoma.

Edited February 29 by sunbrother

[oscwilde]

4 & 5.....
Interesting....and bummer....

I transitioned to Sonoma a while back (actually early-adopted on 2 of 3 Macs....the Studio machine principally runs PT / thousands of plug-ins as well - so is held back).
On the two Macbooks running Logic / limited range of plugs in comparison with the Studio Mac I was personally having a lot of grief with overload/compatibility error messages on Ventura.
I had to "rationalize" a few plug-ins (like 4 or 5) in the switch to Sonoma as they simply weren't compatible/no updates available....but all of my mission-critical plugs (including some that were throwing errors in Ventura) work smoothly.
In my experience, Ventura was the worst recent 64-bit only MacOS version - going back to Catalina....but everyone's rig(s) are different/mileage varies.

Out of interest, what plugs/apps are keeping you on Ventura?

[sunbrother]

Native Instruments, for one. All their software has become an indispensable part of my workflow.

Now after further testing, the issue is occurring again and occurring outside of Track Stacks. All I can tell so far is that sometimes when I try to do overdubs during mix sessions Logic will get into a state where some audio is delayed by the project latency, and sometimes (but not always) it being outside of a Track Stack fixes it.

[oscwilde]

8 minutes ago, sunbrother said:

Native Instruments, for one. All their software has become an indispensable part of my workflow.

I have Komplete Ultimate 14 on all 3 machines....runs fine native.
 

11 minutes ago, sunbrother said:

when I try to do overdubs

Hmmmm....punch recording?
Random thought - Ctrl-click the Rec button and disable "Allow Quick Punch"....then test again.

[sunbrother]

10 minutes ago, oscwilde said:

I have Komplete Ultimate 14 on all 3 machines....runs fine native.
 

Hmmmm....punch recording?
Random thought - Ctrl-click the Rec button and disable "Allow Quick Punch"....then test again.

From past experiences, I'm not interested in updating before NI says they've tested it. They have such a huge product line that the half you use may work fine and the half I use doesn't. I updated a few instruments of theirs to Monterey prematurely after being told it "worked fine" and it was such a huge headache...

I'm not punching in but I just tried it with Allow Quick Punch disabled. No difference.

 

[polanoid]

5 hours ago, sunbrother said:

The thread has to do with MIDI but this issue occurs with audio and MIDI.

I can easily reproduce it with MIDI, but not at all with Audio. This definitely seems to be a different issue.

5 hours ago, sunbrother said:

reduce one down to a test case so Apple (and anyone here who's interested) can see what I'm seeing.

that would at least be me 😉 

[sunbrother]

1 minute ago, polanoid said:

I can easily reproduce it with MIDI, but not at all with Audio. This definitely seems to be a different issue.

I’ve been digging through old posts and I really think both audio and midi are late due to a single issue. There’s a thread I linked in a Bug forum post I made where the issue is happening for both audio and midi and the same workarounds fix both.

I’ll post a picture of my routing at some point. It seems like a prevalence of track stacks and aux sends will make the issue apparent.

[JakobP]

If you're direct monitoring from your mixer when doing audio recordings, then you need to uncheck "Software Monitoring" in Logics settings (in your last screenshot it's still enabled). If you don't, Logic will "over compensate" the latency. The thread you link to only concerns MIDI recordings on track stack main tracks.

Edited February 29 by JakobP

[polanoid]

22 minutes ago, JakobP said:

If you're direct monitoring from your mixer when doing audio recordings, then you need to uncheck "Software Monitoring" in Logics settings (in your last screenshot it's still enabled). If you don't, Logic will "over compensate" the latency. The thread you link to only concerns MIDI recordings on track stack main tracks.

Thanks @JakobP I overlooked that little detail, probably because @sunbrother literally wrote "I record without Software Monitoring."

Edited February 29 by polanoid