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Old 07-24-2017, 08:42 AM   #1
MRMJP
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Default Latency Issue noticeable when FX Blend used (AU Plugins)

I've reported this in several ways over the last year but a problem still exists. I use exclusively AU plugins because a few plugins I often use are AU only (no VST yet). I use Item FX exclusively except for one dither plugin on the track/channel that all the items are placed on. I have that track routed to three different stereo hardware outputs and then I am monitoring that on another armed track which I eventually record to.

The problem is that sometimes the latency or delay compensation is not properly calculated. It becomes a bigger problem when the FX blend is used. I often adjust the FX blend of the UAD Ampex ATR-102 somewhere between 30% and 70% so this problem is magnified for me a lot.

When the problem exists, I get a weird phase robotic sound because I am hearing the signal twice and slightly out of sync.

The problem seems to be induced by many plugin vendors so I've stopped pointing to them and decided to report the issue here.

The problem can occur when you insert an additional plugin at the end of an existing item FX chain. Brainworx, FabFilter, Goodhertz, Tokyo Dawn Records are just a few plugins that commonly induce this.

If I stop playback and restart it, the problem often clears up right away. The problem is that sometimes the problem can come back with no warning when I go to print the audio to a new track.

I have all my items lined up on a single track and then I play and record the entire session back to a new track. Randomly, some items will not properly calculate latency and then the new recording for that particular item needs to be redone with properly latency compensation.

Can you please take a closer look at how to improve this on the REAPER side?

Here is a screen shot that may help:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/3fgdbffuel...%20AM.png?dl=0

The lower track contains the source item where the item FX are applied. I left the item FX chain open so you can see it.

The first time I printed this to a new track shown above it, everything was fine. I had to go back and reprint the song with some different analog settings and a new source file.

On playback, it was sounding fine. When I went to print it in, as you can see, the 2nd take or recording is slightly late. However, it's not just late but it's phasey sounding and unusable because something is goofy with the latency and FX blend. I had to reprint it again and make sure the latency compensation was behaving properly.

There is no obvious reason why sometimes it goes wrong and sometimes it doesn't.

Does this seem fixable on the REAPER side?
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Old 08-01-2017, 06:31 PM   #2
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Old 08-06-2017, 10:55 AM   #3
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If you can come up with instructions to reproduce incorrect latency compensation being applied for a particular AU, we can take a look.

From your past reports and our discussions, I'm pretty sure that this problem has nothing to do with wet/dry blend (though I have no doubt you notice it due to wet/dry blend), and is purely just an issue with changing PDC amounts for particular audio unit plug-in(s).
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Old 08-06-2017, 09:50 PM   #4
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If you can come up with instructions to reproduce incorrect latency compensation being applied for a particular AU, we can take a look.

From your past reports and our discussions, I'm pretty sure that this problem has nothing to do with wet/dry blend (though I have no doubt you notice it due to wet/dry blend), and is purely just an issue with changing PDC amounts for particular audio unit plug-in(s).
Thanks. I would agree that the FX Blend is not the cause of the issue, it just makes it more noticeable if you use it.

There seems to be a growing number of plugins that don't seem to get the latency properly calculated and then I end up with cases like this which for more people might not be an issue, but if you're mastering a song and have the FX Blend in use on some plugins, it will surely ruin things.

I'll try to put together a more simplified reproducible case.
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Old 08-14-2017, 05:52 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Justin View Post
If you can come up with instructions to reproduce incorrect latency compensation being applied for a particular AU, we can take a look.

From your past reports and our discussions, I'm pretty sure that this problem has nothing to do with wet/dry blend (though I have no doubt you notice it due to wet/dry blend), and is purely just an issue with changing PDC amounts for particular audio unit plug-in(s).
Would you prefer I reproduce with REAPER plugins only, or can I use some 3rd party? What's a high latency REAPER plugin?
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Old 08-14-2017, 07:59 PM   #6
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I ended up making a very simple reproducible case using two common AU plugins I often use. UAD Ampex and Brainworx dynamic EQ.

Here is a video:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/t1s12a0mgl...ST_V1.mov?dl=0

Keep in mind that Quicktime captures audio in mono but if anything, that may help exaggerate the issue.

In the video you see me insert UAD Ampex and set it to 50% to help expose the issue.

You see that when I insert the 2nd plugin, the audio sounds very weird and robotic because of a phasing/latency issue. I have to stop and restart playback to correct the issue. Use audio that has just drums to help expose the issue.

That's not the main problem though.

The main problem is that sometimes when playing through a session from start to finish, items with item FX will randomly have this issue, and of course when the FX blend knob is used, a serious latency problem is heard. Then if I try that section again, the problem goes away.

During my testing I could also reproduce a case where only the UAD Ampex was inserted on the item, the blend set to 50%, and the initial playback of the item after opening the session had this issue. It took a playback restart or two to correct itself. That doesn't seem right.

I find this problem occurs with many other plugins like FabFilter Pro-Q 2, Goodhertz etc. I just used these two because I know for sure I could recreate the issue fast.

I think there is a serious issue where (at least AU plugins) either are not reporting the right latency, or REAPER is not properly getting the message and when the FX blend is used, it becomes a serious issue.

Here is a zip of the session if that helps:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z54u9bogsk...ST_V1.zip?dl=0

Here is a zip of my most recent configuration:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/rfgkl205xv...ConfigZip?dl=0

Can anything be done so that the latency/PDC adjusts itself more accurately, faster, and more importantly, doesn't have random issues on different playbacks where the problem does or does not occur?

It's a major problem for me when on any given random print of a full album, this happens to a certain item or items, and I have to go back and re-print that song. I don't do anything different. The problem just fixes itself on another attempt.

Thanks for looking.
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Old 08-15-2017, 06:44 PM   #7
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So it's only on AU, or have you seen with with VSTs too? If you could post a session that reproduces with a publicly-available non-hardware-requiring AU that'd help.
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Old 08-15-2017, 07:23 PM   #8
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So it's only on AU, or have you seen with with VSTs too? If you could post a session that reproduces with a publicly-available non-hardware-requiring AU that'd help.
I normally use only AU but I believe I tried it with the VST versions of these two particular plugins and also had the issue.

By "publicly-available non-hardware-requiring AU" do you mean something native that isn't UAD? Or freeware?

What are some of the higher latency plugins that come with REAPER?

I'll try to recreate this in the morning.
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Old 08-16-2017, 05:34 AM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MRMJP View Post
I normally use only AU but I believe I tried it with the VST versions of these two particular plugins and also had the issue.

By "publicly-available non-hardware-requiring AU" do you mean something native that isn't UAD? Or freeware?

What are some of the higher latency plugins that come with REAPER?

I'll try to recreate this in the morning.
ReaVerb and ReaFir can both require significant PDC (you can adjust the FFT size to make it more dramatic)
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Old 08-16-2017, 06:15 AM   #10
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OK, while I'm 90% that at some point this morning I created the issue with just ReaFir inserted, the problem is much more reproducible with AU plugiins.

Here is a new video:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/lc43goqk45...ST_V2.mov?dl=0

You can see me insert various plugins instances (Waves LinMB, Brainworx DynEQ, Ozone etc.)

Many times when the blend is set to 50%, you can hear hear the issue.

As you see and heat at 2:13 in the video, just toggling the FX offline and back online can cause the issue.

Usually a fresh playback clears up the issue. What I'd really like to avoid is the random times that playing through a session either causes or doesn't cause the issue.

While it would be nice if this issue never happened, stopping and restarting playback isn't a major issue. The bigger issue is when I have to re-record sections where this happened on initial playback of the item.
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Old 08-16-2017, 07:23 AM   #11
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OK, I've duplicated the following issues with Take FX:

1) Decreasing ReaFIR's FFT size during playback results in out of sync audio until you restart playback (or playback loops)

2) Bypassing ReaFIR during playback results in out of sync audio until you restart playback (or playback loops), or until you re-enabled ReaFIR.

ReaFIR in this example could be any plug-in with PDC (FFT size change = change in PDC amount)
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Old 08-16-2017, 07:25 AM   #12
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OK, I've duplicated the following issues with Take FX:

1) Decreasing ReaFIR's FFT size during playback results in out of sync audio until you restart playback (or playback loops)

2) Bypassing ReaFIR during playback results in out of sync audio until you restart playback (or playback loops), or until you re-enabled ReaFIR.
Thanks, I have a feeling that maybe this is related to what I'm experiencing?

Clearly, inserting new plugins in the item/take FX chain during playback can cause a sync issue until playback is restarted.

Sometimes it seems that the PDC is wrong even on the initial playback though until playback is restarted again.

Does that make any sense?

Does this mean that it can affect VST and AU? I only saw a VST of ReaFir.
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Old 08-16-2017, 07:28 AM   #13
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Clearly, inserting new plugins in the item/take FX chain during playback can cause a sync issue until playback is restarted.

Sometimes it seems that the PDC is wrong even on the initial playback though until playback is restarted again.
I haven't been able to duplicate either of these -- the only issue I've found is where the amount of PDC *decreases*, which would not happen in either of those instances. If you can come up with steps to reproduce, please do.

e.g., to reproduce my findings:

1) Put an item on two tracks
2) Reverse the polarity of one track
3) Play (noting silence)
4) Insert a ReaFIR on one of the items
5) Play (noting silence)
6) Bypass or decrease FFT size of ReaFIR during playback (noting continued non-silence after changing)

providing steps such as these would make diagnosing and fixing these sorts of problems straightforward.

It's possible that one of your issues is that some plug-in changes its PDC amount in response to perceived rendering state, causing some of this issue. Hopefully fixing the behavior when the PDC amount decreases will also address that.
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Old 08-16-2017, 07:31 AM   #14
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I haven't been able to duplicate either of these -- the only issue I've found is where the amount of PDC *decreases*, which would not happen in either of those instances. If you can come up with steps to reproduce, please do.
The only steps so far are shown in the video. Insert some higher latency plugins (Waves LinMB and Brainworx Dyn EQ is what I tried) and then put the FX blend to 50% on the first one.

Taking the FX chain offline and back on again will produce similar weirdness.

AU versions especially.

I'm not sure I have the time this week to show anytime more detailed than the video which shows various ways of the issue occurring.
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Old 08-16-2017, 08:36 AM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Justin View Post
I haven't been able to duplicate either of these -- the only issue I've found is where the amount of PDC *decreases*, which would not happen in either of those instances. If you can come up with steps to reproduce, please do.

e.g., to reproduce my findings:

1) Put an item on two tracks
2) Reverse the polarity of one track
3) Play (noting silence)
4) Insert a ReaFIR on one of the items
5) Play (noting silence)
6) Bypass or decrease FFT size of ReaFIR during playback (noting continued non-silence after changing)

providing steps such as these would make diagnosing and fixing these sorts of problems straightforward.

It's possible that one of your issues is that some plug-in changes its PDC amount in response to perceived rendering state, causing some of this issue. Hopefully fixing the behavior when the PDC amount decreases will also address that.
See my above post but here's perhaps a simpler approach using Goodhertz Tone Control Plugin. Video:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ossob6tbfg...ST_V3.mov?dl=0

If you want the session, here is a new zip:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7nyzw8ngkc...ST_V1.zip?dl=0

Use RPP file V3 to see the Goodhertz version.
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Old 08-16-2017, 09:14 AM   #16
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I have a general fix for take FX PDC change issues, but it's a pretty major change, so I don't think it'll make it in 5.50... probably 5.51pre1.

Last edited by Justin; 08-16-2017 at 09:24 AM.
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Old 08-16-2017, 09:41 AM   #17
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I have a general fix for take FX PDC change issues, but it's a pretty major change, so I don't think it'll make it in 5.50... probably 5.51pre1.
Thanks! I usually keep up with he pre-release versions so I have a feeling that 5.51pre1 probably isn't too far away.

Thanks for continuing to look into this.
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Old 02-03-2018, 06:28 AM   #18
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FWIW, this is still not really solved. When I insert certain plugins into an item FX chain during playback, the latency doesn't seem to change or change properly and when other plugins in the chain are set to less than 100% wet, I can hear bad phasing issues.

I have to stop playback and restart. It doesn't happen for all plugins but certainly a fair amount.
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Old 02-20-2018, 09:14 AM   #19
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I saw some recent changes to FX/PDC etc. and I tried to recreate this issue now with 5.79 and so far I can't produce the issue.

I'll try on a few different sessions this week but it seems there is a chance this might be solved in some way.
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Old 02-20-2018, 03:06 PM   #20
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I may have spoken too soon. I had to close a session in progress and reopen it and the first playback of an item that had some plugins instead and a plugin blended to less than 100% caused a phasey sound until I stopped and started playback again.
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