• Registered: 2011-08-09
  • Posts: 3

Topic: FIREFACE 400 - Latency Issue

And a rather annoying one at that.

Purchased my FF400 in early 2010 and it has been a pleasure to work with.  No noticeable delay whatsoever at 256 samples.

Recently however, a very noticable delay has transpired which has made recording guitar/bass/vocals a pain. Even at 96 samples. At 48 the deathly crackle ensues and there's still a noticeable delay.

I went to the extent of formatting my disk and reinstalling Cubase 5, the FF driver and all plug-ins, only to be uber-disappointed to find the latency issue still present.

I mostly record guitar pop (ie. the song formats are consistent, not to mention predictable) and using roughly the same number of plug-ins and tracks as I did 6 months ago, only there wasn't an alopecia-inducing delay present then.  My PC is fast enough, and on a fully finished track with all plug-ins active, the vst perfomance meter is bubbling at just under 50%.  I've tried pretty much everything and only assume there's a problem with the FF400.  I've considered that it might be a settings issue, but I've never tinkered (input levels and phantom power aside) with it as the factory settings seemed felicitous.

Any help or advice would be truly appreciated.


Cheers

Paul

  • Registered: 2008-01-01
  • Posts: 3,025

Re: FIREFACE 400 - Latency Issue

If you didn't change the audio buffer size (256 samples as you wrote) then the delay is most likely introduced by one of your plugins.

  • Registered: 2011-08-09
  • Posts: 3

Re: FIREFACE 400 - Latency Issue

Timur wrote:

If you didn't change the audio buffer size (256 samples as you wrote) then the delay is most likely introduced by one of your plugins.

Thanks for the speedy reply Timur.  I had suspected it might be a plug-in issue, but what galls me is that it never used to be a problem.  Even for just a couple of tracks in a project with minimal plug-ins, there is a very off-putting delay.  6 months ago I could have 30 tracks, packed to the rafters with CPU-draining plug-ins and there was no delay. Those were happy days indeeed.

  • Registered: 2008-01-01
  • Posts: 3,025

Re: FIREFACE 400 - Latency Issue

It's not an issue of CPU or number of plugins. If a single plugins uses an internal buffer then the whole project has to be delay shifted in order to compensate for that. If Cubase does not offer an option to display the buffer/latency of your plugins then you could download Reaper's free trial and look with that.

To give an example: Linear Phase EQs can use buffers in the hundreds and thousands of samples.

  • From: Houston, TX
  • Registered: 2007-05-11
  • Posts: 1,191

Re: FIREFACE 400 - Latency Issue

You can quickly check this in Cubase:  Goto the "Plug in Information" menu and click on the far left column ("# of instances" if I recall correctly) - this will organize the list by the plugs that are actually "in use" in the project.  Now, scroll over a litte and look at the "Latency" column - see if you have any highly-latent plug-ins in use.  If you do, find low-latency alternatives for tracking, or "Constrain Delay Compensation" as Timur hinted at (makes the mix sound like ass in most cases sad )

I always run at 32-Samples of ASIO on the RME card, and I'll use plugs that are a max of 32-64 samples latent for tracking, but more than that is a feel killer IMO (also have to add in ASIO latency and AD/DA conversion latency on top of this plug-in delay latency to determine "Real World Round Trip Latency" from Mic/Line to Monitors/HP's).

cool

MADIface-XT+ARC / 3x HDSP MADI / ADI648
2x SSL Alphalink MADI AX
2x Multiface / 2x Digiface /2x ADI8
  • Registered: 2011-08-09
  • Posts: 3

Re: FIREFACE 400 - Latency Issue

Randyman... wrote:

You can quickly check this in Cubase:  Goto the "Plug in Information" menu and click on the far left column ("# of instances" if I recall correctly) - this will organize the list by the plugs that are actually "in use" in the project.  Now, scroll over a litte and look at the "Latency" column - see if you have any highly-latent plug-ins in use.  If you do, find low-latency alternatives for tracking, or "Constrain Delay Compensation" as Timur hinted at (makes the mix sound like ass in most cases sad )

I always run at 32-Samples of ASIO on the RME card, and I'll use plugs that are a max of 32-64 samples latent for tracking, but more than that is a feel killer IMO (also have to add in ASIO latency and AD/DA conversion latency on top of this plug-in delay latency to determine "Real World Round Trip Latency" from Mic/Line to Monitors/HP's).

cool

Eureka!


Randyman, I am forever indebted.  PSP Vintage Warmer 2 and Waves API were the main protaganists.  You're a legend.

  • Registered: 2008-01-01
  • Posts: 3,025

Re: FIREFACE 400 - Latency Issue

<cough> wink