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Hi all,

I'd like to report a pretty nefarious issue that's been getting in the way of my work recently. I like to use negative values in the Track Delay as I frequently compose with sample libraries and this is an effective way to deal with latencies and pre-roll times in samples when trying to line up transients (for example effective mixing drums and bass, or orchestral libraries with latent attacks).

When I write MIDI normally, my plugins all work totally fine. I like to use plugins such as Native Instruments Kontakt and Spectrasonics Omnisphere, and also use many synth plugins such as the offerings from Native Instruments or others like x-fer Serum and u-He Diva.

When I attempt to use negative track delay, it gets really unstable at higher values, like behind -200ms. The note playback is choppy and way out of sync, and I've confirmed this by debug logging basic MIDI events in a Kontakt script where they arrive to the plugin completely randomly out of time from how they are written in the MIDI itself. Depending on certain start positions for the transport cursor, it's sometimes completely fine. I would think maybe it depends on just starting on a fresh bar, but that isn't predictable either.

I've replicated this issue on several plugins like the synths and samplers I described earlier. Not only are they all playing back incorrectly, the effects are identical across them all with a given transport start position. As in, the MIDI playback is exactly the same across them all despite being totally out of sync and incorrect from how it is written.

I have also noted that when I change audio buffer sizes in my interface, the incorrectness of a given start position sounds different. However, it is still out of sync and identical across plugins.

All of this leads me to believe there is a bug in how Studio One is sending the MIDI and it's not a VST or plug-in based issue.

Here is an example of an identical MIDI played through both -300 ms track delay and a plain fresh track. This is a piano sample library in Kontakt, but it's exactly the same effect in every plugin I try. The same jitteriness and awkward syncopation, missed notes, etc.

EDIT: Since this was asked, this is static MIDI data in an event clip. I'm not playing anything live.


Normal.wav
(1.18 MiB) Downloaded 251 times

-300 Track Offset.wav
(1.19 MiB) Downloaded 217 times


I am on Windows 10 64-bit, using Studio One 4.5 (though I've had this issue back since I started using S1 in version 3 I believe) with an RME Babyface Pro interface.

I would like to hopefully get this investigated and fixed as it could be a huge benefit to the work I do, especially since I am designing a plugin to make use of negative track delay in DAW's for some intelligent lookahead features.
Last edited by neblix on Tue Jul 09, 2019 9:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
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by roland1 on Tue Jul 09, 2019 8:32 am
Listening to them, it's like night and day by comparison, performance wise.

To be extra clear: you are not playing this "live" using a controller but from a MIDI file in the timeline whose notes share the same position whether at normal playback or with the -300 delay?

I'm just asking you to verify this so that no one mistakenly questions your timing in trying to play something the same way twice (although you're playing would have to be pretty terrible to get such drastic differences in timing. :) )

I'll be watching this thread to see if it might explain my own experiences—which have made my own playing sound pretty terrible at times with a -215 sample delay.

Studio One Pro (v5) on i7 7700 win10 PC w16GB RAM and a Mac Pro Tower (w/RME & Focusrite interfaces.)

I use S1 as an author/musician/multi-media artist.
My work includes the newly released: Clearing a Path to Joy (And finding contentment along the way) [AuroraSkyPublishing.com]
and my upcoming music video, Too Big To Fail, which introduces Citizen Based Social Planning — "the next step in the evolution of democracy." You know...typical everyday stuff. :)
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by neblix on Tue Jul 09, 2019 9:06 am
roland1 wroteListening to them, it's like night and day by comparison, performance wise.

To be extra clear: you are not playing this "live" using a controller but from a MIDI file in the timeline whose notes share the same position whether at normal playback or with the -300 delay?

I'm just asking you to verify this so that no one mistakenly questions your timing in trying to play something the same way twice (although you're playing would have to be pretty terrible to get such drastic differences in timing. :) )

I'll be watching this thread to see if it might explain my own experiences—which have made my own playing sound pretty terrible at times with a -215 sample delay.


Hi Roland,

That would be a pointless and un-scientific way to test this, so yes, this is just a plain MIDI clip sitting in the track in order to show that for the same data, the MIDI handling is completely distorted.
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by roland1 on Tue Jul 09, 2019 10:26 am
It was a trick question. I was just testing to see if you were being pointless and unscientific. :D

Actually, I wanted to make that point clear to anyone who might miss such a detail and say "when I play my keyboards, it's in perfect time" — because this is exclusively an internal matter. I made such a mistake this morning when I missed a vital detail about something...

Hey, Scheiße happens.

neblix wrote...
Hi Roland,

That would be a pointless and un-scientific way to test this, so yes, this is just a plain MIDI clip sitting in the track in order to show that for the same data, the MIDI handling is completely distorted.

Studio One Pro (v5) on i7 7700 win10 PC w16GB RAM and a Mac Pro Tower (w/RME & Focusrite interfaces.)

I use S1 as an author/musician/multi-media artist.
My work includes the newly released: Clearing a Path to Joy (And finding contentment along the way) [AuroraSkyPublishing.com]
and my upcoming music video, Too Big To Fail, which introduces Citizen Based Social Planning — "the next step in the evolution of democracy." You know...typical everyday stuff. :)
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by Bbd on Tue Jul 09, 2019 12:55 pm
[quote="roland1"]
Hey, Scheiße happens.

It sure does!
:?

Bbd

OS: Win 10 x64 Home, Studio One Pro 6.x, Notion 6, Series III 24, Studio 192, Haswell CPU: i7 4790k @ 4.4GHz, RAM: 32GB, Faderport 8/16, Central Station +, PreSonus Sceptre S6, Eris 3.5, Temblor 10, ATOM, ATOM SQ
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by niles on Tue Jul 09, 2019 1:01 pm
@neblix, I can confirm the behavior. The notes are definitely triggered wrong.

OS: Windows 11 Pro | HW: Gigabyte Z690-UD-DDR4 • INTEL i7 12700K • 64GB • 3x EVO 860 • NVIDIA GT1030 (@WQHD) • RME AIO
User avatar
by Nip on Tue Jul 09, 2019 3:02 pm
From manual
"Delay Lets you apply a positive or negative time delay to the current Track, to help align it with other elements. Range of -100 to 100 ms."

So you are out of range for what it is designed - so no bug at all

*** Windows 7 Pro * i7-860 2.8 Ghz 16 GB ram * RME HDSP 9632+AI4S+Audient ASP 800 * GT730 ***
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by roland1 on Tue Jul 09, 2019 3:40 pm
Audio "record offset" is in samples.
MIDI "record offset" is in ms.

Probably something in these settings worth considering as well.

In regard to delaying the track, I wonder if buffer size or DP restricts it to a 100ms limit. (?)

Studio One Pro (v5) on i7 7700 win10 PC w16GB RAM and a Mac Pro Tower (w/RME & Focusrite interfaces.)

I use S1 as an author/musician/multi-media artist.
My work includes the newly released: Clearing a Path to Joy (And finding contentment along the way) [AuroraSkyPublishing.com]
and my upcoming music video, Too Big To Fail, which introduces Citizen Based Social Planning — "the next step in the evolution of democracy." You know...typical everyday stuff. :)
User avatar
by niles on Tue Jul 09, 2019 4:40 pm
Nip wroteFrom manual
"Delay Lets you apply a positive or negative time delay to the current Track, to help align it with other elements. Range of -100 to 100 ms."

So you are out of range for what it is designed - so no bug at all
With < -100 amounts it occasionally goes wrong as well. It may be less obvious to some though. But when you do a few MIDI loopback runs with a 1/16th pattern at 120 BPM you'll see the result is not always consistent.

Here's an example with a -60 ms track delay.
Image

To me it makes sense that if we can go to -1000 ms delay, playback should stay tight all the way, even when the manual still speaks of the old 100 ms track delay limit.

Attachments
negative_track_delay_causing_irregular_musical_data.gif

OS: Windows 11 Pro | HW: Gigabyte Z690-UD-DDR4 • INTEL i7 12700K • 64GB • 3x EVO 860 • NVIDIA GT1030 (@WQHD) • RME AIO
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by neblix on Tue Jul 09, 2019 8:39 pm
The 100 ms range is old and no longer a limit in the current Studio One.

Also, just because a manual says something is supported to a certain range doesn't mean it stops becoming a bug.

If anything, the bug is then the UI for allowing values that exceed it. :P
User avatar
by Skaperverket on Wed Jul 10, 2019 2:51 am
Ah. I use this feature a lot. Perhaps this bug is the reason why I find the "MIDI" timing in S1 so sloppy. Good to know.
User avatar
by roland1 on Wed Jul 10, 2019 6:05 am
Yup.

Anyone have an opinion on which DAW handles MIDI the best, timing wise?

On a related note, Sonar Platinum is now free to download. True story.

Studio One Pro (v5) on i7 7700 win10 PC w16GB RAM and a Mac Pro Tower (w/RME & Focusrite interfaces.)

I use S1 as an author/musician/multi-media artist.
My work includes the newly released: Clearing a Path to Joy (And finding contentment along the way) [AuroraSkyPublishing.com]
and my upcoming music video, Too Big To Fail, which introduces Citizen Based Social Planning — "the next step in the evolution of democracy." You know...typical everyday stuff. :)
User avatar
by PreAl on Wed Jul 10, 2019 7:27 am
neblix wroteThe 100 ms range is old and no longer a limit in the current Studio One.

Also, just because a manual says something is supported to a certain range doesn't mean it stops becoming a bug.

If anything, the bug is then the UI for allowing values that exceed it. :P


Actually
a) If the limitation is documented it's not a bug.
b) If the manual is wrong there is a bug with the manual and disregard statement (a).
c) If the UI allows other values, it takes an enhancement to fix it.

Might sound a bit beurocratic the way I put it, but that's how a QA person thinks

Intel i9 9900K (Gigabyte Z390 DESIGNARE motherboard), 32GB RAM, EVGA Geforce 1070 (Nvidia drivers).
Dell Inspiron 7591 (2 in 1) 16Gb.
Studio One Pro 6.x, Windows 11 Pro 64 bit, also running it on Mac OS Catalina via dual boot (experimental).
Presonus Quantum 2626, Presonus Studio 26c, Focusrite Saffire Pro 40, Faderport Classic (1.45), Atom SQ, Atom Pad, Maschine Studio, Octapad SPD-30, Roland A300, a number of hardware synths.
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by roland1 on Wed Jul 10, 2019 7:59 am
So, the timing issue is not the problem, it's the manual information, or how people choose to talk about MIDI timing?

Yup. 4.52. Giddyup.

Studio One Pro (v5) on i7 7700 win10 PC w16GB RAM and a Mac Pro Tower (w/RME & Focusrite interfaces.)

I use S1 as an author/musician/multi-media artist.
My work includes the newly released: Clearing a Path to Joy (And finding contentment along the way) [AuroraSkyPublishing.com]
and my upcoming music video, Too Big To Fail, which introduces Citizen Based Social Planning — "the next step in the evolution of democracy." You know...typical everyday stuff. :)
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by patricemazmanian on Wed Jul 10, 2019 1:37 pm
The negative delay on midi tracks is unusable. The problems start at -80ms.
In audio there is no problem whatever the negative delay.
Fortunately, I only use audio in recent years! :thumbup:

S1 pro 6 -Vienna Ensemble Pro - Melodyne - Notion 6 - Win10 - jBridge 1.65 - Motherboard ASUS Z87-K - i7 4770K 3.5Ghz, 32 Go RAM - GeForce GT 610 1024MB - Audio interface RME Hammerfall multiface II - Faderport - ADAT Interface Focusrite Scarlett OctoPre - EWQL hollywood-orchestra...
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by Jemusic on Wed Jul 10, 2019 3:54 pm
I have only ever used small track advance settings such as up to -20 mS at best. For adjusting the feel and making things sit a little more on the beat or move a synth part so the loudest parts of transients are on the beat etc I have found this is all the time you need. Currently its OK but as you get closer to -45 mS it starts going out. Quantised material stats falling apart rhythmically. It's a bug and been noted, reported and more than likely dealt with in a future update. It should work for larger negative delays for those who want to use it that way.

I thank neblix because I would never have found this until someone tried pulling tracks back by a huge amount and 300mS is a huge amount. But it exposed this bug.

The workaround for now is use 0 mS delay settings, select the event/s and move them all physically to the left. (with snap off of course) You can actually position them very accurately after switching your timeline to seconds. Music needs to start after bar 1 and not on bar to do this also. It should anyway.

I have checked and the issue is the same for external hardware synths being triggered as well. This is important because many older synths/samplers with slower response times, plus dead air prior to the start of the samples are often present.

I find it is very useful to audition your instrument/audio tracks against the feel of the music in total and shift them around to get them to be late and laid back, in the pocket, or even a touch early creating a more urgent feel. In fact I could say it is very important and almost essential. Many are not doing it and just accepting how things sound as a result of where they end up. There is a lot of expression alone in shifting tracks around in time. Once you start moving them around especially to the click, the music can sound much better feel wise. You need a great timing ear to do this though. There is a sweet spot with these settings too like most things.

A good feature would be individual delay settings for multiple evens on the same track. Have them move in time as the music progresses towards a certain point etc..

Specs i5-2500K 3.5 Ghz-8 Gb RAM-Win 7 64 bit - ATI Radeon HD6900 Series - RME HDSP9632 - Midex 8 Midi interface - Faderport 2/8 - Atom Pad/Atom SQ - HP Laptop Win 10 - Studio 24c interface -iMac 2.5Ghz Core i5 - High Sierra 10.13.6 - Focusrite Clarett 2 Pre & Scarlett 18i20. Studio One V5.5 (Mac and V6.5 Win 10 laptop), Notion 6.8, Ableton Live 11 Suite, LaunchPad Pro
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by roland1 on Thu Jul 11, 2019 2:14 pm
I never realized what kind of influence I wield around here. :D 24 hr turn around on requests.

roland1 wroteSo, the timing issue is not the problem, it's the manual information, or how people choose to talk about MIDI timing?

Yup. 4.52. Giddyup.

Studio One Pro (v5) on i7 7700 win10 PC w16GB RAM and a Mac Pro Tower (w/RME & Focusrite interfaces.)

I use S1 as an author/musician/multi-media artist.
My work includes the newly released: Clearing a Path to Joy (And finding contentment along the way) [AuroraSkyPublishing.com]
and my upcoming music video, Too Big To Fail, which introduces Citizen Based Social Planning — "the next step in the evolution of democracy." You know...typical everyday stuff. :)
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by neblix on Thu Jul 18, 2019 12:31 pm
I'm developing a sample library feature that uses latency compensation to line up legato transitions. A portamento on a woodwind can be around 200ms, so this requires MIDI in advance of 200ms to tell whether to delay playback of normal notes or to start the portamento transition immediately.

That's why I need such huge values. It works totally fine if I just drag the clip to the left before the barline, but it's negative track delay that makes it unusable, as I said on pretty much every plugin.

The workaround is fine, but negative track delay is more elegant, and the whole purpose of this library feature is to allow composers to write on the grid while keeping their legato transitions in time, something rendered moot if they have to move their event clip off the grid.

While I don't know anything about the S1 codebase, from my own tech perspective I can't imagine why a working negative delay wouldn't work for any arbitrary set value (it just shuffles forward everything else in time by the difference), so I hope that this is something that would be looked at and improved rather than saying "the manual gives a limit" (a limit which, as demonstrated by some other users here, is still unstable).
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by Nip on Thu Jul 18, 2019 10:49 pm
neblix wroteWhile I don't know anything about the S1 codebase, from my own tech perspective I can't imagine why a working negative delay wouldn't work for any arbitrary set value (it just shuffles forward everything else in time by the difference), so I hope that this is something that would be looked at and improved rather than saying "the manual gives a limit" (a limit which, as demonstrated by some other users here, is still unstable).


As I was evaluating ProTools some years ago - it has maximum of 16 000 samples of pdc it can handle, everything loaded in plugins can only sum up to that - the longest chain of plugin delays in there somewhere.

Not sure if there is such a limit in StudioOne, don't see it mentioned so often for daws what that limit is.

So this is about 300-350 ms if 48k/44k projects.

The track delays does not show up on total pdc used(at lower left in arrange view) - but think it is handled in the same manner. And track delays are not doing anything while recording - not misplacing clips of anything - only on playback is this applied.

This means you are inflicting on pdc that can be used with this usage of extreme track delays.

So I think you should go with just nudging clips as needed. You can make a macro that do that for you - to any misplacement you want - just one key command and done.

Not sure if you use a breath controller while playing live - but seems to me you are programming these notes.

Not sure I understand fully though, from you description.

You have a separate track that you delay that only hold legato controls and portamento stuff?
So that your final pitch is in time with grid?

A little bit like playing slide on guitar, you start a bit low early and raise to pitch while playing.

*** Windows 7 Pro * i7-860 2.8 Ghz 16 GB ram * RME HDSP 9632+AI4S+Audient ASP 800 * GT730 ***
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by Jemusic on Fri Jul 19, 2019 12:00 am
I am not sure PDC and track advance (neg delays) or delays are the same thing.

The track delay settings are used to fine-tune the timing of a track so the transients can be made to fall on or close to the grid. They come into their own where the sound reaches a high point somewhat later than the very start of the actual sound. Be it midi or audio.

if a sound has an instant transient then it will fall on the grid. Latent plugins will be automatically compensated for in order for this to happen. We don't have to sweat PDC.

Studio One needs to fix the negative delay mode. Ableton goes way up to 500mS easily and in fact it can probably do 1000mS. You can adjust it on the fly too which is something Studio One does not like too much. It needs to be stopped and restarted after tweaking track delays usually.

Specs i5-2500K 3.5 Ghz-8 Gb RAM-Win 7 64 bit - ATI Radeon HD6900 Series - RME HDSP9632 - Midex 8 Midi interface - Faderport 2/8 - Atom Pad/Atom SQ - HP Laptop Win 10 - Studio 24c interface -iMac 2.5Ghz Core i5 - High Sierra 10.13.6 - Focusrite Clarett 2 Pre & Scarlett 18i20. Studio One V5.5 (Mac and V6.5 Win 10 laptop), Notion 6.8, Ableton Live 11 Suite, LaunchPad Pro

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