M-AUDIO Pro Tools Recording Studio - Manual (Page 883)

Chapter 40: Basic Mixing 865
Delay Compensation for MIDI
When Delay Compensation is active, a MIDI
event that is recorded to sound “in time” with
delay-compensated material actually is recorded
late by the length of total delay in effect.
To compensate, MIDI events are shifted back in
time by the total session delay following each
MIDI recording pass.
Low-Latency Recording with Virtual
MIDI Instruments
When a MIDI or Instrument track that is routing
MIDI data to an instrument plug-in is record-en-
abled, Pro Tools automatically suspends Delay
Compensation through the main outputs of the
audio track, Auxiliary Input, or Instrument track
on which the instrument plug-in is inserted. This
allows for latency-free monitoring of the instru-
ment plug-in during recording.
MIDI and Audio Processing Plug-ins
Some audio processing plug-ins (such as Digide-
sign’s Bruno and Reso) and many instrument
plug-ins let you process audio while allowing
MIDI data to control processing parameters.
When you record enable a MIDI or Instrument
track that is controlling an audio processing
plug-in, the track the plug-in is inserted on will
go into low-latency mode, effectively making
the processed audio play early. The steps to pre-
vent this and keep audio time-aligned depend
on the type of track on which the plug-in re-
sides.
To keep audio time-aligned when recording using a
MIDI controlled plug-in on an audio track:
„ Start-Control-click (Windows) or Command-
Control-click (Mac) the Track Compensation in-
dicator for the audio track to apply Delay Com-
pensation.
To keep audio time-aligned when recording using a
MIDI controlled plug-in on an Auxiliary Input:
1 Start-Control-click (Windows) or Command-
Control-click (Mac) the Track Compensation in-
dicator for the Auxiliary Input to bypass Delay
Compensation.
2 Enter the total system delay into the User Off-
set field.
Configuring Cue Mixes with Delay
Compensation
If you already have a Pro Tools session that uses
various plug-in inserts and mixer routing, you
will most likely want to have Delay Compensa-
tion
enabled. However, if you want to record
overdubs with a recording artist, “the talent,”
you will need to configure monitoring mixes
(headphone or “cue” mixes).
Use sends to bus cue mixes to audio output
paths for headphone monitoring by the talent.
In addition to the main mix, which will monitor
in the control room, route track sends to one or
more additional audio output paths tracks for
cue mix monitoring. Using sends lets you con-
figure different mixes from the main mix for cue
Delay Compensation for virtual MIDI in-
struments works only when all MIDI and
audio connections take place inside
Pro Tools. While Pro Tools does not
suspend Delay Compensation when you are
using ReWire to connect software synthesiz-
ers and samplers in other ReWire client ap-
plications (such as Reason), Pro Tools can-
not account for any latency within the
ReWire client itself.