Playback cursor out of sync!

[Stephen Carter]

Apologies if I’ve missed any previous answer/s on same topic,...

Apologies if I’ve missed any previous answer/s on same topic, have searched/read forum etc., but cannot find…

When playing back songs inside my DAW (Studio One Pro v3.5.6 Windows 10 Pro) the visual feedback i.e. cursor position is not in sync with the audio I’m listening to!

The cursor (both on the song track and/or the grid editor) is displaced from the audio by half a bar or so, which makes it very difficult to perform edits because the cursor is not on the note or block part that is sounding. The audio is synced fine.

I’m thinking that this might be a latency issue but Studio One (as I suspect most DAW’s) has latency compensation, this compensation however does not seem to extend to SD3 visuals.

Has anyone else experienced this, what is for me a serious issue and is there a fix?

Regards….

Windows 10 Pro/i7 6800k @3.4Ghz/16Gb ram. Studio One Pro, Melodyne Editor 4, Vocalign Project, Superior Drummer 3, Izotope N2-O8 and various other plugins. Focusrite Saffire Pro 40, Faderport, Focal Alpha 50's, Korg Pa3x, Korg Pad Kontrol, numerous guitars, basses & other antiquated outboard gear.

Apologies if I’ve missed any previous answer/s on same topic, have searched/read forum etc., but cannot find…

When playing back songs inside my DAW (Studio One Pro v3.5.6 Windows 10 Pro) the visual feedback i.e. cursor position is not in sync with the audio I’m listening to!

The cursor (both on the song track and/or the grid editor) is displaced from the audio by half a bar or so, which makes it very difficult to perform edits because the cursor is not on the note or block part that is sounding. The audio is synced fine.

I’m thinking that this might be a latency issue but Studio One (as I suspect most DAW’s) has latency compensation, this compensation however does not seem to extend to SD3 visuals.

Has anyone else experienced this, what is for me a serious issue and is there a fix?

Regards….

Windows 10 Pro/i7 6800k @3.4Ghz/16Gb ram. Studio One Pro, Melodyne Editor 4, Vocalign Project, Superior Drummer 3, Izotope N2-O8 and various other plugins. Focusrite Saffire Pro 40, Faderport, Focal Alpha 50's, Korg Pa3x, Korg Pad Kontrol, numerous guitars, basses & other antiquated outboard gear.

Topic

[Pertcev]

I have the same issue. It’s sadly. Such much years…

I tried everything described above but the cursor goes ahead.

Logic Pro 10.7.3, iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2020), 3,6 GHz 10-Core Intel Core i9, 64 GB DDR4.

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.2.8
Operating system: macOS Monterey (12)

[John]

Well, if there are other latency inducing plug-ins present in your DAW downstream in the audio path from SD3, how do you suggest that SD3 should be able to compensate visually for that latency if it’s not communicated from the DAW to the SD3 plug-in? The Timeline cursor playing along you see in SD3 is what is sent from the host. Latency compensation (or lack thereof) is handled by the DAW, not the plug-in. The plug-in can only report its own internal latency to the DAW.

BR,
John

John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[Bear-Faced Cow]

Not to mention that it’s fallacy to believe that other plug-ins don’t experience this as well. Both Maschine & Melodyne do the exact thing for the exact same reason. That’s a part of what delay compensation in a DAW is all about.

jord

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Jordan L. Chilcott

Web Site: https://jordanchilcottmusic.com/

[Stephen Carter]

I don’t have Maschine but I’m prepared to accept that it may have the same problem. I do however, have Melodyne and I have not noticed the same problem…!!

Probably going to get EZ Drummer 3 – looks like it may provide all I need from a drum plugin so maybe SD3 will no longer need to be an occasional source of angst for me. Lets hope that EZD3 is a lighter weight plugin and won’t suffer the same in its midi edit page.

Windows 10 Pro/i7 6800k @3.4Ghz/16Gb ram. Studio One Pro, Melodyne Editor 4, Vocalign Project, Superior Drummer 3, Izotope N2-O8 and various other plugins. Focusrite Saffire Pro 40, Faderport, Focal Alpha 50's, Korg Pa3x, Korg Pad Kontrol, numerous guitars, basses & other antiquated outboard gear.

[Bear-Faced Cow]

I have Melodyne Studio and it does the exact same thing when I have latency inducing plug-ins loaded. Higher sample buffer rates will also induce latency. Maschine is easy to make happen, being on a instrument track. Instrument plug-ins will experience this more readily as they are receiving direct MIDI instructions first in order to get the audio for the DAW to process.

You will see the same thing in EZD3. It’s not a ToonTrack issue. It’s a compensation delay factor between MIDI and audio within the DAW.

jord

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Jordan L. Chilcott

Web Site: https://jordanchilcottmusic.com/

• This post was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by Bear-Faced Cow.

[Stephen Carter]

OK – so what’s the fix? Is there one? Who’s responsibility is it?

Meanwhile I’l work around it like I’ve always had to do since I got SD3…

Windows 10 Pro/i7 6800k @3.4Ghz/16Gb ram. Studio One Pro, Melodyne Editor 4, Vocalign Project, Superior Drummer 3, Izotope N2-O8 and various other plugins. Focusrite Saffire Pro 40, Faderport, Focal Alpha 50's, Korg Pa3x, Korg Pad Kontrol, numerous guitars, basses & other antiquated outboard gear.

[Bear-Faced Cow]

The responsibility is yours to understand how latency compensation delay works.

It has already been said, don’t use latency inducing plug-ins while recording and editing. Also helps to use lower sample buffer rates while editing. You can raise it and use the heavy plug-ins for mixing.

jord

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Jordan L. Chilcott

Web Site: https://jordanchilcottmusic.com/

[Grant Maloy Smith]

I often have this display latency running SD3 and EZBass in ProTools. As stated by at least one other user in this thread, it does not happen in every session. It seems to be random. It does make editing a drum pattern very awkward and inconvenient. When the playback cursor is working, editing is fast and easy. When it’s 1/4 note or more ahead of the audio, it makes editing frustrating and painful. AS I said, in sessions where this happens it affects both EZBass and SD3 in exactly the same way. I tried disabling one of them to see if it was affecting the other, but it made no difference. I’ve tried a huge range of settings in terms of buffer sizes, etc and again it makes no difference. Then without changing any system settings I can close this session and open a different one where SD3 and EZBass are working perfectly. There’s something else going on. It’s disappointing that this has been going on for five years at this point and there’s no solution.

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.3.6
Operating system: macOS Ventura (13)

[Bear-Faced Cow]

It sounds like you have other plugins that are latency inducing on your “problem” sessions. Again, that’s not a Toontrack issue,  but a factor of latency compensation.

Jord

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Jordan L. Chilcott

Web Site: https://jordanchilcottmusic.com/

[Grant Maloy Smith]

Not at all. After I migrated the data from the session into a new session where SD3 and EZBass worked properly, I went back to the old session and removed every single track and all plugins, leaving only one instrument track with SD3 on it. Guess what – the time cursor is still a 1/4 note ahead of the actual drum beats. Reading through these complaints going back 5 years, they mention virtually every major DAW having the same problem, but in a very inconsistent way. It would not seem to be a DAW issue based on the reporting.

[Bear-Faced Cow]

Then somehow your DAW is still doing latency compensation somewhere in that session. The fact that you moved it to a new session and got no issue proves that.

This is something that happens with all timeline based plug-ins and has so for the past few decades. It happens with Maschine and Reason as well. It’s because the DAW has to send the MIDI note pointer to receive the audio data to process. Again not a Toontrack issue. It’s how delay compensation works in DAWs.

jord

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Jordan L. Chilcott

Web Site: https://jordanchilcottmusic.com/

[20]

Hi John, Bear-Faced Cow & all at Toontrack that seem to think that the SD3 GUI performance issue is someone else’s problem.

You see, at the end of the day, it must be Toontrack’s responsibility to provide a product that works properly, no?

Now, I’m not a plugin developer & don’t write code but it occurs to me that a simple addition to the program could solve all of our woes with this graphic display cursor sync mess…

Here goes:

All we need is for a small box next to the Tempo display box on the Main page called something like ‘Display Offset’ where, if necessary, the user can dial in the correct amount of (graphical, not audio) negative delay to bring the SD3 cursor in line with their DAW.  Voilá

Please, please, please everyone at Toontrack, get with the program & add this important update ASAP.

It’s been 6 years!!!

Many thanks & best wishes

paul

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.3.6
Operating system: macOS Monterey (12)

• This post was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by 20.

[Bear-Faced Cow]

That’s not how it works and would be absurd every time you add a plug-in because you’re deciding to mix when you record or edit, change sample buffer rate, change audio interfaces, etc. Latency compensation is a moving target and in most cases it is the user that is moving the target. Instruments have no knowledge of their environment. They get a MIDI position pointer message and return audio for processing within the DAW. That’s all they know. The responsibility is not on ToonTrack or any DAW. It’s yours for having an understanding how latency compensation works and how to adjust your workflows to match it. Like I said, I have seen this with all timeline based instruments.

Jord

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Jordan L. Chilcott

Web Site: https://jordanchilcottmusic.com/

[Bradley Davis]

I know this thread is from waaay back, but I was wondering if this issue got resolved for the folks that are having it. I am new to SD3 (long time SD2 user) and I seem to be having the same issue. Sound it 100 percent fine, but the visual is slightly off enough to make it tough to do a proper edit. Especially on any fast tempo songs. I’d love to be able to edit inside the program instead of in Reaper’s piano roll as has been standard practice for years.

Thanks!!
Brad

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.3.7
Operating system: Windows 10

[John]

Hi Brad,

as has been mentioned several times in this thread; the “issue” is about understanding that having plug-ins that induce latency in the same Session/Project may affect something like the visual feedback in a plug-in like SD3 but not exclusively Toontrack plug-ins. If I see this happening in e.g. SD3, I see this in other plug-ins in the same Session/Project.

If I am bothered about it, I disable/de-activate latency inducing plug-ins while working with the MIDI in SD3, then enable/activate them again when done.

Should you however experience this in a Session/Project where there are no other plug-ins, then please reply with specs on your environment; computer, OS, DAW, version, etc. along with a saved Session/Project where this happens.

BR,
John

John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[Author]

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