I feel like I’m Waves’s biggest fan, but I’m unable to use many of Waves’s newest plugins due to the PDC latency they add.
I mix as I go during composition, so I have to avoid plugins with PDC latency. Lately most of Waves’s plugins have latency including SSL EV2, Magma Channel, Magma Springs, etc.
Other developers have adjustable oversampling options. This allows us to turn off oversampling for zero-latency during composition, and then dial it back up for rendering.
The smartest plugins are able to intelligently switch to oversampling during rendering, although I appreciate being able to set this myself because that doesn’t work in all DAWs.
Anyhow, please consider zero latency for those of us who mix as we compose. Ideally it would be set in the effect itself, but even a separate “Live” plugin is adequate. (I always use AR TG Mastering Chain Live, for example, because it is zero latency vs. ~8000 samples for the full version.)
Often it’s oversampling that is the culprit. Sometimes it’s things like linear phase filters though. Oversampling will always add latency. The trouble is everyone is requesting it.
Ironically you can increase the sample rate of your session, you’ll get what is effectively the same thing as oversampling but at a lower latency. The downside is it “can” be a lot more taxing on the system. I say can because if everyone has set every plugin to oversample at x4 and you’re simply running at 96k, then that oversampling session will end up using more CPU.
But I digress…
For low latency plugins the internal oversampling would have to be effectively at zero.
SSL EV2, Magma Channel & Magma Springs have ~1ms of latency when working at 48kHz. How does 1ms of latency make them unusable for you? (I’m asking, because I’m trying to understand the issue)
Because it’s cumulative, and in addition to the audio interface’s latency.
So let’s say I start with something like 5.33 ms roundtrip latency from my audio interface. Then we layer a few 1ms latency plugins on the channel, bus, and master.
Now we’re over 14ms.
And some plugins have more latency than that. HLS Channel for example has 3.35ms.
How about the named Nx rooms. Those are 11.2 ms of latency – and that’s in addition to the latency of the audio interface and effects. (I understand those have to have latency because of how the rooms are sampled, not due to oversampling – but I’m mentioning as an example of how the latency adds up.)
The Puigtec EQs are 11.2 ms each… So if I use both Puigtec EQs on a channel that’s 22.4 ms, and again — it stacks up from channel to submix to master.
It has become a standard with certain other companies to offer adjustable oversampling. It’s a great feature. You can turn it off during composition and dial it up when you render. Some companies even have an automatic option so you have one setting for realtime performance and another during rendering.
That’s what I’m asking for. Adjustable oversampling options with the ability to turn it off when we don’t want it.
There would be cases because of the maths involved it wouldn’t be, quite possibly the aforementioned NX plugins as an example. H-Reverb is an FIR effect, that’s another example where latencies may become an issue because of the maths involved. If the Abbey Road reverbs are based on the same tech it’s possible their latencies can’t be reduced either.
I’m just taking a wild guess at those examples, so I could easily be wrong there. The point was, though, was to introduce some latencies are also introduced not simply because of oversampling but because of the complex maths. Anything with Linear Phase Filters would be a good example too.
But yes, where its possible I believe the user should have the choice of “quality” or perhaps even give the plugins a “live” mode.
Yes, yes, a live mode would make me happy. That’s what I use with AR TG, and it’s one of my favorites.
I’m taking Krabbencutter’s advice to try to ignore the latency and see if I can work without noticing it, or just live with it. That way I can at least enjoy Magma Tube Channel Strip and SSL EV2 which are really great.
I do know what you are talking about though, as I can have similar experiences with latencies.
That’s how I came across the methodology where I first make a compromise and track with the “rough” sound I have in mind. It only has to be good enough to set the right vibe and to get my ideas down. This way I also don’t get lost in endless tweaking upfront where it stalls the entire recording process.
Once I pretty much have the arrangements in that’s where I work on improving the sounds. This could involve duplicating the track and swapping out one amp or effect for another then comparing the two versions after I make my changes. At this point I don’t have to care as much about latencies either.
Once I’m sure I have “improved” the sound I can then clean up the session and get rid of the original version.
It’s a compromise, but it does place the priorities where they are needed and offers me a way to improve it going forward. This is why I don’t render anything unless absolutely necessarily. Freezing tracks provides me a more efficient method at going back and improving on something as the arrangement builds.
Good call & good advice. I’ve never gone too deep with freezing because I have an irrational fear that something will break!
In a similar-but-different way — once my projects reach a point of complexity, I typically export a render and add additional parts in a separate project file. I always do vocals & guitar for example, in separate project files – then I import them back in to the main project after all the editing and cleanup.
That’s an interesting approach. I know Bruce Swedien (Michel Jackson) would do a rough mix and bounce it to another tape only to record more tracks. Then he’d repeat that process a few more times until he had everything down.
This was to preserve the integrity of the tape because it wears down over time.
When it comes to mixdown he’d recall all the preserved original sessions and mix with those. I’m just unclear whether he bounces them down to a new tape or not, but I imagine he does.
I’ve been using the freeze function for as long as it as been around myself, so I have no reservations personally. But I do make thorough use of folder stacks, and track alternatives as flesh out the track. I also make project alternatives as the mix moves forward. So I kind of have a working history of most things. Which has proved to be helpful in the past.
Because of all this it’s rare that I have made any mistakes that I couldn’t recover from. Though, they do still seem to happen on the odd occasion. Nothing is foolproof.
When I was recording in a studio years ago we had a song with a difficult part where the bass player had to record over and over and over to get it right. I began to worry with so many repeated recordings! The engineer said it would be fine…
To my surprise I just read that it’s not the magnetics which are a problem, but rather just physical wear – and mainly only an issue if the machine isn’t in perfect running order.
Man, I’d love to mix down to real tape. I like tape emulations a lot, so that leads me to believe I’d enjoy the real thing even more.
Emulations are cool thing. I could also use them as part of my workflow and revisit what I use and how I use them when I finally have the context of a full mix.
Maybe my choice in tape was too bass heavy or too top heavy, or too saturated, I could adjust my settings or swap it out for a different emulation that’ll fit better in the mix.
That’s what I love about the non-destructive approach in modern day DAW.
I’m getting a bump warning on the side, because this is an old conversation — but I just wanted to say… it feels like Waves is listening!
I suppose it’s not a new thing, because there are numerous old Waves plugins that offer a “Live” version — but I just wanted to send CHEERS about the new plugins:
Silk Vocal LIVE
IDX LIVE
Curves Equator LIVE
Magma BB Tubes (Adjustable upsampling, 0 latency at the most minimal setting)
This makes me so happy, thank you Waves.
(I do wish there was a live version of Magma Channel Strip though!)
Yeah I do get that feeling. It would just be nice to see this also transition to their not so recent or even older plugins.
It seems that software businesses of this day and age have to be more responsive to their customer’s requests/demands. Ubisoft, a big gaming company you might probably be familiar with, almost went under due to several years of not responding significantly enough to customer feedback. It seems they were running things more like companies would have in the early 2000s to mid 2010s, old habits. They’ve of course switched things up now, a few years too late, but hopefully it will be enough.
Waves almost made fatalistic move when they introduced their subscription only model. If they had of run some kind of focus group or put out a survey to learn people’s popular opinion they could have saved themselves a whole lot of drama.
In some way, this might be why they seem to be responding more to feedback. It’s too easy for a few people to completely disintegrate a company just by sharing their opinions on social media. For better and for worse. It’s a different world now, especially with AI coming into the frame.
Aware of UBISOFT indeed! (My day job is game industry art & design going back to 1995! Three decades making games now!)
The subscription fiasco was insane. I think they responded quickly and handled it well, and even released an update that extended to people who didn’t even have active update plans (SOC v2 if I remember right? Maybe EV2 as well?) which felt like a gesture of good will.
I do wish they’d make the Gems plugins available for purchase. Even outside of Mercury. But they are subscription only, unfortunately.
Anyhow, the subscription revolt created some hostility in people that never went away. Kind of like when Dan Worral’s followers went after Harrison(!), although that’s died down now.
People are rabid these days. It’s like there’s an underlying frustration with the state of things – and all that frustration gets targeted at certain individuals, certain companies, etc… At this point, any positivity about Waves on Reddit for example often gets someone downvoted to the point of being hidden. (Most subreddits hide comments with more than 4 downvotes.)
Some of them are particularly bad with an intentional spread of misinformation, telling people Waves plugins stop working when the update plan expires, etc…
And to the original point - Waves just included a LIVE version of the new AQ. I’m so happy! (Thank you, Waves!)
I missed the Dan Worral/Harrison fiasco, what was that about?? I do know he’s dealing with some kind of issue and has been slowly getting over that.
People can indeed be quite rabid these days. I also agree a large part of it has been to do with underlying frustrations. Not just with the dev in particular, although thats’s bound to be a significant element, but just life in general. Trump America looks like it’s about to explode.
I do know that a lot of dissent cab be artificially sown by Russian agents, if I can call them that. Their job is to create tension and put everyone at each others throats by seeding false information across social media. Though, I doubt that has anything to do with the audio dev community in particular.
I think their channel strip plugin doesn’t do as much “magic” as the marketing suggests. Dan did a couple of videos about it that seemed fine to me (as a paying Harrison customer, though only for Mixbus), but seems like some of the audience got overly vocal about their displeasure.
I only heard about it afterwards, only discovered Dan’s videos this year (they’re great, btw, especially for us Commonwealth folk who appreciate dry British sarcasm). But since it was an internet fight, I’m betting 90% of people were just angry out of boredom.
FWIW, I like the Harrison channel strip, but only because it’s a convenient channel strip in their own DAW. I wouldn’t dream of getting the plugin for another DAW - the gate is probably worth it if I can’t have EMO-D5 or PSE, but otherwise I’m not at all upset that you can null it out with stock Reaper plugins.
It might not have even been a perfect null. A lot of harmonic distortion is as low as they could practically manufacture. That was the goal of anyone building hardware back in the day. That means that THD is most likely -60 to -80dB or even lower. And if you don’t jack up the volume enough you won’t hear the very quiet difference which could be mistaken for being “nothing”.
Or maybe it is what it is to encourage people to use the DAW instead which has more fully fledged features.
