gprokap
Set my buffer to 64 - 5.8 ms Latency - basically can't feel this when playing even when playing fast on a track with no plugs acrross it.
When trying to track thru plugins on a session that's got drums that are already "mixed" - there is significant latency even if I have no plugins on the track I'm tracking. If I turn the plugins off the other channels there's no perceivable latency.
So . . . apparently latency across the who session affects what your tracking. Is there some setting some I'm missing that can set it to NOT do that? I know Cubase has this option, does SONAR?
The confusion is that the 5.8 ms value refers to buffering latency only and does not include software latency from plugins, which the audio driver knows nothing about.
We don't think about plugin latency much because SONAR does such a great job of hiding it from us. But some processors require internal buffering of their own that can be 2-4x more than audio driver latency. SONAR slows everything down to match the slowest plugin in the project so everything smoothly stays in sync.
Normally, we only insert such plugins after tracking is done, so that additional latency doesn't get in the way. During mixing, it doesn't matter. We might even bump the driver buffers, too, to avoid dropouts as we add more and more plugins. But long latencies during mixing are not noticeable, except as a slight delay between hitting the spacebar and starting playback.
If you're late into the mixing phase with lots of plugins running, and then decide you need to add an overdub, maybe some hand percussion or a vocal harmony, latency at that point may be too great to effectively add that new part. That's when you hit the PDC Global Bypass button.