Hi folks,
 
Found myself in what must be a familiar situation - building a project at the tracking stage and assembling a 'rough' mix to track to with simple effects (comps, reverbs etc...). Now the problem is that I am extremely sensitive to plugins that add significant latency so I'm wanting to set up a 'tracking' set of plugins for use on live inputs / tracks that I can use without pushing the latency to uncomfortable limits.
 
How do I find out the effective latency of a plugin within Sonar ? Comfortable with readings in ms. or samples. My PSP Audio plugins are much loved at the moment as they all report latency in their UI. Alas my IK and Waves plugs are more secretive about their inner workings. Sure I could skim read all of my plugin manuals but I guess this would be a tedious task and possibly prone to errors when certain features can extend latency (upsampling etc...). I'd appreciate a live reading if you see my meaning. No signs of this info in the plugin manager.
 
Need your wisdom my fellow musicake bakers!

It can vary on the current settings inside the plugin, so I would expect it can only be calculated when Sonar begins playback. But I agree, this would be a very useful thing for Sonar to report. I'd vote for it.
 
In theory I would expect modulation, delay, gain, and saturation effects to have zero or near-zero latency, EQ to have moderate latency, and convolution effects (cab sims and reverbs) to typically have large latency - purely based on the sort of operations they need to perform. But so many effects these days are hybrids of the above that it's hard to be sure.

 I'm wanting to set up a 'tracking' set of plugins for use on live inputs / tracks

 
You do realise that whatever plugins you use during tracking, they will not be applied to your tracks?

Waves publishes this in their manuals. Speaking very generally, compressors/limiters with look-ahead or automatic adaptive parameters (especially so called "transient designers"), linear phase EQs, and impulse based reverbs add significant latency.

Sanderxpander
Waves publishes this in their manuals. Speaking very generally, compressors/limiters with look-ahead or automatic adaptive parameters (especially so called "transient designers"), linear phase EQs, and impulse based reverbs add significant latency.

You only have to go to website for a plugin for Waves stuff.
Tech Specs tab below - and then Latency tab.
 
Even for a bundle product you get a full list and sample rate.

 
Look at Gold bundle:
http://www.waves.com/bundles/gold
 
 I also vote for having a column somewhere for this.

Bristol_Jonesey
You do realise that whatever plugins you use during tracking, they will not be applied to your tracks?

They will be applied to what you hear. eg. If you're recording into a guitar amp sim, you're listening to the effect of the plugin.

Kylotan

Bristol_Jonesey
You do realise that whatever plugins you use during tracking, they will not be applied to your tracks?

They will be applied to what you hear. eg. If you're recording into a guitar amp sim, you're listening to the effect of the plugin.

but not committed/applied to the recorded wav

SilentMind
No signs of this info in the plugin manager.

 
Yes, per plug-in, per track and per project plug-in sample delay and CPU usage is something that I wish SONAR would report to the end user. Very useful info to know. You can always download and install REAPER and use it's dynamic "Performance Meter" & "Plugin Chainer" windows to get all the info you need. It only takes a few seconds to download and install with a 30 full use trial trial and then just a nag screen after that. When I want to test out new plug-ins, I always use REAPER first so I can get all of the nitty gritty details (sample delay, CPU usage, controls usage, etc). I find if it is stable and working in REAPER it will work in most any VST compatible app.
 
Cheers,
 
Billy Buck
 

pwalpwal

Kylotan

Bristol_Jonesey
You do realise that whatever plugins you use during tracking, they will not be applied to your tracks?

They will be applied to what you hear. eg. If you're recording into a guitar amp sim, you're listening to the effect of the plugin.

but not committed/applied to the recorded wav

I'm pretty sure the OP knows this, and was just saying that he wants to identify which plugins he can use with the confidence that he won't encounter an latency problems while input monitoring his live performance during recording.

Yeh that's right Brundle - just trying to get everything set-up so I can go wild n creative during tracking without finding any latency goblins that jolt me right out the zone (amazing how quick that happens with technology dont ya think ?).
 
Appreciate the tips. Will possibly use Reaper (installed for collaborative work) to do my workings out. Methinks a feature request for 'live' PDC readings within Sonar would be prudent at this point.
 
Cheers and back to the music-making!