Some Waves plugins have less PDC latency at higher sample rates

Feature Requests
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I always loved J37 but I used Kramer Master Tape more often because J37 had 101 samples of plugin delay compensation latency and Kramer Master Tape only requires 64 at 48khz.

But I made a huge discovery thanks to Waves’s handy Plugin Latency table: Plugin Latency | Support | Waves

J37 goes down to 33 samples of PDC latency at 88.2/96khz… And I confirmed that if you enable oversampling in Reaper, the plugin drops to 33 samples!

This is significant because most tape emulation plugins have latency and 33 is low enough you can barely detect it, if at all.

For comparison, IK’s tapes are like ~600 to ~1200 samples which makes them pretty much unusable during composition.

So here’s a selling point for Reaper:

Reaper has built in oversampling, which is HUGE for Waves products because a lot of them don’t offer oversampling. That means if you enable oversampling suddenly you get less foldback distortion, and the EQ filters work correctly without cramping.

Now add to it that some Waves plugins have less latency at higher sample rates (or with Reaper’s oversampling enabled) — again, another huge win for Reaper users.

I just noticed Waves SSL EV2 also has reduced latency at high sample rates. 59 samples at 44.1/48, but only 20 at 88.2/96! (Or with Reaper’s oversampling enabled.)

Even the low numbers matter because they are cumulative when used in series, so it builds up and suddenly you feel a delay when you play your keyboard.

So again, you can check the PDC latency here:
https://www.waves.com/support/tech-specs/plugin-latency

And it’s also useful to know the max sample rate of Waves plugins:
https://www.waves.com/support/tech-specs/sample-rate-support

That last link is important because a lot of Waves plugins don’t work correctly above 96khz… And that’s relevant to people who use DAW based oversampling because you don’t want to use more than X2 oversampling with those plugins.

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I just noticed TG12345 drops to 0 latency at 88.1/96khz (or x2 oversampling at 44.1/48khz)!

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Yeah that would be another reason I work at 96k, reduced latencies.

I’ve got to say that currently KMT isn’t reporting its latency correctly in Logic, so it will cause delays. Quite a few of the IK plugins are like that too. The’ll display a latency time if you hover over it in the channel strip, but it seems those times aren’t being compensated either.

Latency reporting is different topic, though.

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Hmm… Reduced latencies at 96k for Waves plugins or other plugins? From what I can tell, there are more Waves plugins that have increased latency at 96k than reduced:

That’s what caught my eye about J37. It’s less at 96khz.

You mention KMT for example. It’s 64 at 48khz and 128 at 96khz.

That’s weird about the latency not being reported correctly. It appears to be reported correctly in Reaper, for both KMT and the IK Plugins. I haven’t measured to prove it’s correct, but they match the Waves table (and I can FEEL the latency in the IK tapes.)

TASCAM 388 is one of my favorites and it’s 1326 at 48khz 2317 at 96khz. Ouch!!!

Luckily Waves offers low-latency plugins for some of their their high PDC tools. AR TG Mastering Chain is an example of that – it’s 8305 at 48khz. Yikes! But the “Live” version is zero latency and – I guess I should be ashamed to admit it, but I can’t hear the difference.

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The reason why they have less latency, is most likely because at 44.1/48kHz the plugins use some internal oversampling for nonlinear processes to reduce aliasing. But at 96kHz the aliasing is not such a problem anymore, because of the higher Nyquist-Limit, so they disable the oversampling.
Also keep in mind that higher numbers don’t always mean higher latency. 64 samples at 48 kHz is 1,3ms of latency and 128 samples at 96 kHz is also 1,3ms. (64 / 48000 = 0,00133; 128 / 96000 = 0,00133)

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Thank you for that clarification @krabbencutter ! That was an “a ha!” moment for me and now I understand what Simon meant about 96khz behind faster.

With that in mind I’m going to try switching to 96khz myself. Thank you for taking the time to explain that.

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Well Logic would use an AU build of their plugin. For the most part it all works out fine, except in just those small number of instances.

Krab’s maths is right too. The number samples have a different implication at different sample rates. 96k would read the same number of samples in half the time than at 48k and a little bit less than at 44.1k. So this needs to be taken into account.

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:rofl:

REAPER is not the only one to offer OS. There is a well known FREE DAW which offers plugin OS, albeit in a different manner, plus there are plugins available which will do it for you.

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It won’t be long till other DAWs follow suit. If anything they’d end up adding it just due to the public pressure.

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