Is there delay compensation in Mixcraft?

[Bjam]

Hi, I've been reviewing my guitar playing on the grid, and I noticed that the notes and strums are very slightly ahead of the beat. I can't hear this audibly, and no one has ever mentioned it. So my question is: could delay compensation be causing this, or do I naturally play slightly ahead of the beat?

[CactusMusicBC]

It important to know if you are using a proper audio interface with ASIO drivers.
Then Mixcraft will automatically adjust for the system latency and place the new recording correctly on the timeline.

Otherwise if you are attempting to use the computer audio system you will have latency problems that will result in timing being late.
An ASIO interface is sort or essential for recording audio properly.

[Bjam]

I'm using Focusrite Clarett 2pre so no problem there. It's setup in mixcraft correctly. Thanks.

[CactusMusicBC]

WHat you might want to do then is test if the system is calculating round trip latency correctly. What I understand is this is why using an ASIO driver is important. It is the only driver that knows how to tell your Daw how much latency is happening and then the Daw is supposed to adjust for that and overdub tracks should be in perfect sync.
To test you can run a loopback test. You need a short cable. If your interface has a loopback feature that won't work as that bypasses your A/D convertors.

Connect the cable to one of the outputs of your interface and then the other end to one of the inputs. Choose line input setting .
In mixcraft ( or any Daw) insert an instrument track with a drum kit. ( the Acoustica kit as example) enter a snare kick pattern drawing notes on the Editor preferably snapped to the 1/4 note. You only need a few.
Insert a new audio track and select the input you connected the cable to.
Turn off the metronome

Now simply record this setting levels as close to the same as the midi drum track.

I just did this and see my screen shot. It is showing the recording is actually as you say LATE by I think a 1/64 note. This is not good.

I google the question and it says to open preferences and go to the Audio tab?? What Audio tab? it say's there's a latency adjustment there?? I can't find it. If it does exist somewhere that is your question. But truthfully this is something you don't normally have to do in any Daw I've used. It tells me something is not coded properly.

Screenshot (217).png (116.46 KiB) Viewed 9607 times

[CactusMusicBC]

Just to makes sure my test was not flawed I did exactly the same in 3 other Daw's and the results were perfect sync. They really need to do something here as this and the fact the Edit window is totally out of sync to the project makes using this Daw impossible.

Screenshot (220).png (38.64 KiB) Viewed 9605 times

Screenshot (219).png (82.47 KiB) Viewed 9605 times

Screenshot (218).png (43.2 KiB) Viewed 9605 times

[cactus-head]

Hello,

There is delay compensation built into mixcraft. My understanding is it is designed to affect processed signals such as effects and instrument plugins that may be calculated and converted on the fly and therefore introduce timing delays; but shouldn't affect recorded input signals. Scroll to the bottom of this link for an explanation:

https://acoustica.com/mixcraft-10-manual/mixer-tab

But I'm a little apprehensive of a cable looping back into an interface as a test. The input is always going to be some kind of AD conversion and if that conversion has any latency on the output it will become cumulative as it is converted over and over again being a little more delayed as time goes on. This is different than an independent input source that isn't being "reconverted" to an audio signal. The latency of the lone conversion would be consistent in that case. But looping the output back into the input could cause cumulative latency - that's just my thought.

[cactus-head]

Hi, I've been reviewing my guitar playing on the grid, and I noticed that the notes and strums are very slightly ahead of the beat. I can't hear this audibly, and no one has ever mentioned it. So my question is: could delay compensation be causing this, or do I naturally play slightly ahead of the beat?

I've used Mixcraft for years on different computer setups with sound cards vs high end audio interfaces and timing has never been an issue unless it was due to the latency of the audio interface. In general latency around 10ms and above throws me way off.

You can test if it's your natural sense of timing maybe by turning on MC's metronome, add an instrument track with the acoustic piano, arm the track, press CTRL + ALT + K to activate the built in keyboard. Then start recording and press the A key in time with the metronome for a while. If you open the clip in the details area and zoom in real close on the piano roll, it will give you an idea of how you tend to play and whether or not you anticipate the beat. Since it is a closed system within Mixcraft and MIDI which is virtually zero delay, it should work - unless it falls prey to the possible concern of this entire thread; or there is keyboard input lag.

[CactusMusicBC]

Sorry but my test is one that has been around for years and is recommended by people who do professional set up of computer audio.
Mixcraft has an issue.
The other Daw’s as you see don’t.

All 4 Daw’s are using the exact same audio system. A Motu M4 set ASIo driver and set at 48 and a 256 buffer.

People who desire accurate timing of audio overdubs will run this test and if anything is off it might only be by a few samples and some very fussy people will then adjust the Daw in the latency settings to compensate.
The OP has asked a simple question. Where is this in Mixcraft?

[Passionpasi]

Hi,

Made this test today:

Latency test.png (9.89 KiB) Viewed 9306 times

[cactus-head]

...test is one that has been around for years and is recommended by people who do professional set up of computer audio.

Hi,

You are very knowledgeable and thorough, and this would be something I'd find fun to debate as a separate topic.

[CactusMusicBC]

Im not debating anything. Th OP just happened to notice that his overdubs are late. I tested and confirmed that they were correct.
Most Daw’s have an adjustment where you can compensate for errors in the synchronization of recordings . The OP asked if Mixcraft had this feature. Im no expert being only a part time user since last March. So I can’t find this feature.

You seem like someone who has used it long enough to know if it has or doesn’t have this feature.
My test shows a delay of about 20 milliseconds.

All other Daw’s I tested show at 0.7 ms.

The topic has inspired me to do a bunch of research as I have been evaluating all these Daw’s for almost a year now. So I ran the Oblique Audio RTL utility and the loop back test as well as I investigated the audio set up options for each Daw.
Im just gathering the data still but it will be a topic of my next video.
So if Mixcraft does have a latency / recording offset adjustment I would also like to know where you find it.
This is what it looks like in Cubase.

Cubase Audio settings.png (68.01 KiB) Viewed 9073 times

[Acoustica Greg]

Hi,

There’s no delay compensation setting, it’s just built in. Without delay compensation, tracks would be out of sync as different effect chains with varying latency played audio.

And if all the elements are in place, you can certainly have latency lower than 20 ms.


Gre

[CactusMusicBC]

This is actually hilarious to me, You guy just don't get it. Your friggin daw is the only one out of 7 Daw's I own that is generally out of sync on all fronts! It fails the RTL sync test, it fails to have the Midi editor in sync. End of story.

Just built in??? Well you better figure out how to make it accurate. It is most certainly is not. Yes It is generally automatic in all Daw's but the good ones let you tweak it when it is wrong.
As I said all the other Daw's were very close so would not need adjustment, they were only out by 33 Samples ( .7ms) But Mixcraft was out by 20 MS or 1,584 samples, a 1/64 th note at 120BPM, which is unheard of IMHO. The OP most certainly noticed this.
Don't tell me it's something I'm not doing right because this sort of stuff should not be happening when using default settings.

[cactus-head]

Hello,

I apologize - this might be long.

Two things: 1st The OP said they were coming in early - before the beat. Not that they were behind or late. They were asking if maybe it was due to their playing or if there was delay compensation that pushed their recorded waveform a little ahead of the downbeat. I hope they correct me if I misunderstood.

and I noticed that the notes and strums are very slightly ahead of the beat. I can't hear this audibly, and no one has ever mentioned it. So my question is: could delay compensation be causing this, or do I naturally play slightly ahead of the beat?

2nd I think we have to be careful as different equipment and setups may yield different results and each may have a different experience. I still would hesitate on a direct loopback into an audio interface as I believe the audio signal is going through an AD conversion twice and being mixed with the original signal - so that's going to give back longer delays. I ran the test you described on Audacity, Mixcraft and Cool Edit Pro (I wanted something old and simple that wasn't likely to have compensation). In each case the latency with the loop back was about 15 ms. It depended on how accurately I zoomed in and compared; but was pretty consistent. I would say - system wide I could expect a 15 ms roundtrip latency on any audio program for my signal to travel when looped back upon itself. I didn't do a host of tests. Just something quick to see what it looked like.

I decided a more accurate test would be to use the MIDI clock from Mixcraft and slave an external MIDI instrument to send the audio back to Mixcraft. This way, I know that: There should be a consistent clock source from MC and the audio input is only being converted once before being recorded.

First I checked the latency that Mixcraft presents with my current Interface setup. It reads 2.7 ms. I assume that is one way: If I plug something in, the audio would make it to Mixcraft in about that time. But, I'm having MC drive my MIDI hardware so there should be latency for the MIDI clock to travel to my hardware, play the note, my hardware send it to it's output and into the interface. MIDI is super fast, but the audio is a little slower. I'll say for the whole round trip it should be 2 X 2.7 ms or around 5ms. The first screenshot shows my static latency. Any input going into my audio interface will take 2.7ms to process. The buffer will take that much input and convert it to a digital audio signal. There's no way to circumvent that.

MC 10 630 2.7ms latency.jpg (142.34 KiB) Viewed 7137 times

I then created a MIDI clip in Mixcraft with a note on each quarter note downbeat. I set MC as master and my MIDI device as slave. The BPM is at 120. I run the test for 30 seconds or around 15 measures. The example GIF below shows a marker (the green line) at exactly 29 secs in MC. There is a MIDI clip in blue and the recorded audio clip in green below it. I open the marker dialog box and increase the position of the marker by milliseconds. When I reach 4ms, 5ms or maybe 6ms you can see the marker reaches the beginning of my recorded audio. This coincides with my suspicion of a round trip signal taking 2 x 2.7 = 5.4 ms .

This says three things to me - the MIDI clock in mixcraft is consistent and accurate (at least when run within a 30 second test), the latency displayed at the bottom of mixcraft is one way and is accurate to the point that the equipment is accurate; and the latency is low based on my audio interface settings and buffer size. The lowest possible latency based on buffer size I could possibly set on my interface is 1ms. I don't believe .7ms is achievable with any kind of input for me. I use RME which is known for having very good drivers that function with the hardware so I feel fairly confident in the results.

MC 10 630 latency recording MIDI.gif (224.12 KiB) Viewed 7137 times

[CactusMusicBC]

You just actually showed in your screenshot what I was talking about. Zoom in and it is clear the audio track is late compared to the midi track. Mixcraft doesn’t zoom in as far as other daw’s but I figured that it was around 20ms.
It’s possibly not adjusting at all as my reported RTL is 15.3 at a 256 buffer. If I could only zoom in further I could be more accurate in my measurements.
As I said I ran this exact test on Bunch of different Daw’s. They all were exactly the same and were only out by 0.7 ms.

What your not understanding possibility is that this is why we need to use an ASIO driver. The ASIO driver is supposed to report the input and the output latency to the Daw. The daw uses the measurements to automatically adjust to compensate for this and the results should reflect this when you overdubs audio.
This is nothing to do with midi. That uses a different driver and USB system.
We can use midi to generate the audio to perform the test.
The loop back doesn’t harm your system and many interfaces now have this built in. But internal loop back bypasses the Converters. So you can’t use that for the test.
Converters are generally known to only create less than one millisecond of latency. It’s the Computer and buffer system and complicated software stuff that produces the Round trip latency. As noted the measurements were exactly the same on all Daw’s other than Mixcraft.
Audacity by the was doesn’t use ASIO . These tests have to be performed using ASIo as all other divers will be late because they can’t supply the RTL stats to the DAW.

A simple example is with my set up ASIO tells my Daw that my output latency is 8ms. The Daw now looks ahead 8 Ms on the time line and sends that to my interface. It has compensated for the 8ms and therefore I will hear precisely what the timeline marker is now on.
ASIO then tells my Daw that my input latency is 6 Ms. My Daw goes”got it” and places the incoming audio 6 Ms ahead so the audio will now be precisely where the timeline marker is.

Mixcraft, Waveform and Harrison don’t seem to have the ASIO information or adjustments. Just like there’s no db peak reading on the meters so you’re guessing. That’s what defines the difference between a Daw that can be used professionally. It would not take much to add some of these features and bring Mixcraft up to speed. It’s got a lot of excellent stuff but I personally can’t use it because of these few things.