latency and mastering - last Webinar - Brandon confuses

In the latest Webinar (Sonar Music Production 'Aike') at 1:24:37 Brandon says "we're still at 2 ms latency... we can then master in the same project".
 
What has latency got to do with mastering in the same project?
 
I mean we're not tracking/monitoring anything while we're mixing/mastering, are we? So even if the latency were 2 hours, wouldn't that be taken care of by the Automatic Plugin Delay Compensation? Would Sonar not "wait" until all the plugins (including those on the Master bus) did their respective "jobs", before passing the audio to the hardware outputs?
 
Can anyone clear up what he meant?

Sound like you got the answer to your question right to me.  Latency would be if you were playing or recording something live and trying to hear it while your projects playing.
 
But, if you think about moving faders and such (with a controller) while the project is playing (to master manually) there could be a time delay for the input to take affect.  In that case I would use automation. 
 

bitflipper


I'd go with the brain fart theory.

:))))
Seems like it's the only explanation, unless we get a better one... Brandon??

PopStarWannabe


In the latest Webinar (Sonar Music Production 'Aike') at 1:24:37 Brandon says "we're still at 2 ms latency... we can then master in the same project".
 
What has latency got to do with mastering in the same project?
 
I mean we're not tracking/monitoring anything while we're mixing/mastering, are we? So even if the latency were 2 hours, wouldn't that be taken care of by the Automatic Plugin Delay Compensation? Would Sonar not "wait" until all the plugins (including those on the Master bus) did their respective "jobs", before passing the audio to the hardware outputs?
 
Can anyone clear up what he meant?

I didn't see the webinar but going by how it's presented here I'd say what he meant was to do with not having to fiddle with buffer size when going from tracking to mixing/mastering.

That was something I had to bother to do on my previous hardware setup.  Now I just set it and forget it which is pretty cool I reckon, but more to do with hardware improvements seeing as I haven't changed my Sonar version lately in order to benefit.

Basically a well-found DAW these days doesn't need tweaking to perform either function as you can cope with some pretty big loads these days at minimum latency settings.  That's a good thing IMO.

and this is the webinar in question just so there's a quick link for everyone in thread.... http://www.youtube.com/wa...vmshs&feature=youtu.be

@John... Which would kind of go along with the premise that pre-mixdown playback is a better idea of what the final mixdown will sound like as opposed to on older systems... n'est ce pas? And considering that was kind of a Sonar info-mercial I'm sure he brought it up for a reason. Probably that X1 handles these types of CPU/RAM/HDD intensive tasks better than older DAWs may have. Again... just n00bish speculation here. I could be completely wrong.

I wouldn't say that the sound would change whether mixed down or not.

It shouldn't really. If one follows the simple idea of having a master buss where all tracks at some point go through it and then to the main outs the sound you hear should not deviate from that or if you actually mix it down as a wave file. The only difference should be in the bit depth. Using that master buss as the only source for the mix down, I challenge anyone to be able to hear any sonic difference.

One can test this out by simply doing a mix down and import that file into the project Use solo to toggle it on and compare it to the full project. There should be no difference.

Beepster


Thoughtful and insightful as always, John. You always make me think. But to really put that to the test wouldn't we have to have an older system/DAW and a newer system/DAW to do our experiment on both? That way we check the difference between our mixdown and our playback on the older system and then again on the newer system. Then we have a proper comparison as to how effects and other stuff might lag on older platforms during pre mixdown playback and then see that on our newer system the difference is next to nil as you said... which might be the point of what Brandon was eluding to. Again just speculating. I wonder if he'll see this and step in to clarify. I do remember some old buddies telling me to watch out for that kind of plug in effect latency in the old days and to do a couple of mixdowns to really get a handle of what is ACTUALLY happening in the mix before moving on. Interesting stuff.

Bits are bits. As long as nothing is changed meaning plugins and the like it shouldn't matter what system audio is done on. There was a time when we all used single core CPUs with a gb of ram and the files created should be the same in sound as using a new machine. As technology has been updated such as 64 bit audio engines and 64 bit internal processing we should be able to discern a difference with the finished product but it will be a very small one and that would go unnoticed in most cases. 

Really I am not all that convinced that a very well done 16 bit recording with a 24 bit audio engine is going to sound that different to a 24 bit file done in a 64 bit environment.

If we look at it this way that 16 bits for example has within it all that is needed for high quality sound as long as noise is kept very low (the CD format) we can not often tell if something was done using a low bit depth DAW or a high bit depth DAW. (PT v Sonar)

All things being equal here don't underestimate the great quality achieved done on relatively modest gear. Or gear from the past.

To a certain extent what we have now is more headroom in that we can screw up more an still get good sound. Heck, with Sonar for a while now clipping is not the awful thing it was in the past. In the past a clip was verboten! It still is if you want to be very sure that things will not get screwed up but it not the hard and distinct line that should never be crossed.

All in all bits are bits and sound is sound.  

Beepster


Well if that isn't the point of what he was saying I'm now curious what exactly he was referring to because after actually seeing the clip it really does seem like he was being very deliberate (as opposed to the brain fart theory). It's like he sees something on screen and then begins discussing the 2ms latency in regards to being able to master from the mix file as opposed to tossing it into another project for mastering like it was a super important and cool feature or at least point of interest. However they get sidetracked by a question and it turned into a discussion about the various mixdown options (which was quite cool to see as well) so I don't think the original thought was conveyed to completion. Heheh, I wonder what it's like having internet people attempt to dissect little minute snippets of your work like we are here.

Yes that is what he is saying but that does not imply that the file would be "better" sounding  in either event.  The ability to "master" within the project isn't going to change the sound from it mastered separately using the same settings. It really doesn't matter sonically.  Its only that now the option is there.

I'm so very confused. :-/