Negative delay compensation on MIDI tracks

[ZailSi]

Hello,

Does anyone knows how to set up a negative delay compensation on MIDI tracks on DP 10? (If it's possible)

I know about the Time Shift MIDI effect, although the lowest value I can set up there is -0,01 seconds, but I would like to set up millisecond values.

From de MIDI clip window it's possible to nudge all the MIDI notes in milliseconds and I can do that there, but this implies opening the MIDI clip, selecting all the MIDI notes, and nudge them to the left.

I was wondering if DP has this feature somewhere and if it's possible to set it up permanently on a MIDI track (like on a template) like you can do in most DAWS and not having to move the MIDI notes.

Thanks!

[HCMarkus]

If you are looking to align Audio and MIDI globally, there is a Fine Tune Audio I/O Timing adjustment available in DP. Not in my studio at the moment; search the .pdf manual or this website. Also watch out for the "Sync Recorded Notes to MIDI Patch Thru" preference.

[ZailSi]

If you are looking to align Audio and MIDI globally, there is a Fine Tune Audio I/O Timing adjustment available in DP. Not in my studio at the moment; search the .pdf manual or this website. Also watch out for the "Sync Recorded Notes to MIDI Patch Thru" preference.

Thanks for your reply HCMarkus, but fine-tune the offset for the audio to get it to line up perfectly with MIDI it's not what I meant.

I am working on an orchestral template and I am trying to align let's say strings and percussion MIDI tracks to have them tight and in tempo. A string note may take some fraction of a second before the attack reaches the note's full volume, but with a snare the attack of the hit will be much faster. So even when everything is quantized, by nature some instruments will sound a bit later. Applying negative or positive delay compensation on a track will make it sound earlier or later, very much like the Time Shift MIDI effect on DP, although it doesn't let you set it up in milliseconds which is what I need.

Live, Cubase, Logic, and many other DAWS let you apply + / - track delay compensation in milliseconds on a track so easily that I find hard to believe DP doesn't have it!

[HCMarkus]

If you are looking to align Audio and MIDI globally, there is a Fine Tune Audio I/O Timing adjustment available in DP. Not in my studio at the moment; search the .pdf manual or this website. Also watch out for the "Sync Recorded Notes to MIDI Patch Thru" preference.

Thanks for your reply HCMarkus, but fine-tune the offset for the audio to get it to line up perfectly with MIDI it's not what I meant.

I am working on an orchestral template and I am trying to align let's say strings and percussion MIDI tracks to have them tight and in tempo. A string note may take some fraction of a second before the attack reaches the note's full volume, but with a snare the attack of the hit will be much faster. So even when everything is quantized, by nature some instruments will sound a bit later. Applying negative or positive delay compensation on a track will make it sound earlier or later, very much like the Time Shift MIDI effect on DP, although it doesn't let you set it up in milliseconds which is what I need.

Live, Cubase, Logic, and many other DAWS let you apply + / - track delay compensation in milliseconds on a track so easily that I find hard to believe DP doesn't have it!

I see. Might I suggest you send a note to MOTU (Techlink) with a request to add ms shift option to the MIDI Time Shift plugin.

Although I can certainly see the utility of a plugin that will perform as you describe, in my experience, the amount of shift varies depending on any number of variables; I have the left/right arrow keys set up to shift selected regions/data +/- 10ms, which I find to be extremely handy to quickly accomplish your desired result, as well as to align audio for feel and tightness.

[mikehalloran]

Live, Cubase, Logic, and many other DAWS let you apply + / - track delay compensation in milliseconds on a track so easily that I find hard to believe DP doesn't have it!

Not MIDI but MOTU has Precision Delay which does exactly that with the audio triggered by MIDI. Page 71:

https://cdn-data.motu.com/manuals/softw ... +Guide.pdf

[dewdman42]

This is a common task. What I recommend is you check out a freely downloadable AU plugin called LatencyFixer by Expert Sleepers. Find it here:

https://www.expert-sleepers.co.uk/legacy_downloads.html

Basically what you do is you put that plugin onto the instrument channel where you have the instrument that you need to compensate for a slow sample attack. This plugin will report to the host more latency without adding any actual latency...then the host (DP) will use plugin delay compensatation to take care of the rest.

[HCMarkus]

This is a common task. What I recommend is you check out a freely downloadable AU plugin called LatencyFixer by Expert Sleepers. Find it here:

https://www.expert-sleepers.co.uk/legacy_downloads.html

Basically what you do is you put that plugin onto the instrument channel where you have the instrument that you need to compensate for a slow sample attack. This plugin will report to the host more latency without adding any actual latency...then the host (DP) will use plugin delay compensatation to take care of the rest.

This is cool... thank you! Only downside would appear to arise if hosting multiple instruments (with different attack times) in a single instantiation of a VI. In such situations, it would be nice to be able to apply the advance to individual MIDI tracks.

[dewdman42]

Yes no doubt it gets more complicated if you use multi-timbral instrument. Then you need to adjust it in the MIDI. Well you could still at least use LatencyFixer to apply a maximum negative delay to the entire multi-timbral, and then use MIDI delay (not negative) on each MIDI track to bring each one back to where it needs to be.

for example, if you have 3 instruments, one is dead on the money, one is 10ms latent and the 3rd is 50ms latent.

So you'd set up latency fixer with 50ms reported latency. Then you'd apply 50ms of MIDI delay to the first MIDI track, 40ms of MIDI delay to the second MIDI track and 0ms of MIDI delay to the third MIDI track.

[dewdman42]

another alternative would be to put expert sleepers on each audio channel coming back from the multi-timbral instrument.

So you report the latency there, instead of the instrument itself...and I would think DP should work out the PDC that way, again without having to worry about MIDI track delays.

But I don't know all the details of what DP does for PDC...

[ZailSi]

I see. Might I suggest you send a note to MOTU (Techlink) with a request to add ms shift option to the MIDI Time Shift plugin.

Although I can certainly see the utility of a plugin that will perform as you describe, in my experience, the amount of shift varies depending on any number of variables; I have the left/right arrow keys set up to shift selected regions/data +/- 10ms, which I find to be extremely handy to quickly accomplish your desired result, as well as to align audio for feel and tightness.

I have the same set up on the left/arrow keys and it works great, although on some template MIDI tracks I wish could set up a permanent - ms delay for workflow efficiency.

Thanks for the MOTU (Techlink) tip! I will do that!

[ZailSi]

another alternative would be to put expert sleepers on each audio channel coming back from the multi-timbral instrument.

So you report the latency there, instead of the instrument itself...and I would think DP should work out the PDC that way, again without having to worry about MIDI track delays.

But I don't know all the details of what DP does for PDC...

Thanks dewdman42 for the plugin tip and link. I have download it and tried it on the aux tracks that play the audio and it seems to be working great, and I can adjust it in ms values.

Although, I wish DP had this feature on each MIDI track.

[ZailSi]

Live, Cubase, Logic, and many other DAWS let you apply + / - track delay compensation in milliseconds on a track so easily that I find hard to believe DP doesn't have it!

Not MIDI but MOTU has Precision Delay which does exactly that with the audio triggered by MIDI. Page 71:

https://cdn-data.motu.com/manuals/softw ... +Guide.pdf

Thanks mikehalloran, I will have a look at Precision Delay

[dewdman42]

Although, I wish DP had this feature on each MIDI track.

Yea for sure. The expert sleepers trick works fine fir mix down but you will notice most likely that the pdc engine of dp basically has to force the kk her latency to all your tracks in order to even everything out. You won’t notice while mixing but you will notice when you go to record a new track with an instrument that normally has a fast attack transient, you’ll be hearing it with latency as you try to record it. Bleh. That is particularly a problem when you use expert sleepers on aux channels to handle multi timbral instruments.

That’s why if dp could actually add negative track delay to the MIDI tracks on playback then you wouldn’t have that delay while recording a new track.

So I consider that a work around....