Hello, I've recently changed over from MOTU sound cards to an Apollo FireWire interface.
I get hardly any latency when tracking live but tons of latency monitoring virtual instruments through the Apollo.
I posted this on the UAD forum and it was suggested that Sonar's delay compensation might not be working correctly with the Apollo.
 
Can anyone suggest what might be happening? (I've tried adjusting the buffer size on the Apollo, I can go as low as 128 but still the virtual instruments have latency that makes tracking impossible)
*This worsens with heavy track count. If I open a file with only one virtual instrument it would be fine.
I didn't have this issue at all with the MOTU and delay compensation enabled. (and my motu is 15 years old!)
 
Any help would be appreciated!
Thanks
Jono Grant

There should be no delay compensation affecting soft synths unless you have mastering plugins in the project that use a look-ahead buffer.
 
Are you input monitoring through SONAR when tracking instruments? If so, there would be no reason for soft synths to have more latency than live input. Possibly what you're experiencing is a MIDI input delay. What are you using for a MIDI interface?
 
In any case, you might want to check your actual ASIO latency using the free CEntrance Latency Checker, and compare it to the Round Trip latency reported to SONAR by the driver. You can set the Manual Offset to correct for any discrepancy when recording . This won't affect real-time monitoring latency, but it's good to know how much 'hidden' latency your interface adds to the buffer latency, and to have the record compensation dialed in.

Thanks for the reply!
I have zillions of plugs going, some linear phase etc. so yes, there's a lot of delay compensation/ look ahead buffer etc. going on. Some sessions over 100 tracks etc. I have not had an issue in the past using the MOTUs and tracking VI with this type of session so something is wrong. 
 
Scenario: You have a huge multi track session with mega UAD plugins, waves, you name it, it's pretty much mixed and you say: "hey I think I want to add a little piano thing or guitar part..." Mega latency with the Apollo, not with the MOTU. I can't just turn off all my plugins to make it possible to track something; you can't perform the way you want when the rest of the track doesn't sound the way it should.  
 
My midi interface is the MOTU midi express, I don't think I've ever had to configure it or change it in any way for over 15 years. Also, I've tested the soft synths using input monitoring and without, very little difference. Also, lets say I want to play a guitar using "guitar rig" or something like that, same problem.
 
Gotta be something else wrong with the setup. It really seems like the Apollo is ignoring the "plugin delay compensation" button in Sonar. (I do need to use PDC when using the MOTUs in this type of session, but it works!)
 
Any other thoughts would be appreciated.
Cheers
JG
 
 

Its normal for to have latency in projects that have delay compensation. If a synth track has plugins with delay or is routed to a bus that has delay it will be delayed accordingly to align the track data to other tracks.
You can temporarily override delay compensation for the synth track by clicking the PDC override button.
See this help topic for more information. This is independent of the audio interface so your Apollo would not affect this.

Thanks, this all makes perfect sense but I still don't know why I have the issue with the Apollo and not with the MOTU interface... unfortunately I can only use one or the other.
Could there be a different setting somewhere I'm missing? 
JG
 
 

Have you set the UA Console applet's Input Delay Compensation to "Off"? Please refer to this post in my Pro Review of the Apollo Twin USB over on Harmony Central.