Plugin Delay Compensation

Multicore support in renoise was pretty essential I’m very happy that’s been done. The only major flaw in using renoise as a professional product is the lack of plugin delay compensation. It would open the door to the use of convolution plugins, powered plugins (uad, tc powercore) and phase neutral digital eq. Which would be fantastic!

Is this something anybody else is interested in? Is it possible in the near future?

Some plugins introduce delays into the signal due to the way they work. Try putting a covolution plug-in on one of your tracks (try the freeware SIR - http://www.knufinke.de/sir/sir1.html)) and it will be quite noticably out of time with everything else.

Modern VST plugins report their latency, in terms of samples, to the host. The host can then introduce a delay to the other tracks to compensate for the plugin and therefore remove any audible delay from the final output.

I’ve talk here about it before, but dev’s recommend me to use some special plugin that creates delay for other tracks, where normal plugins used.
So for example - if i want to use some convolution plugin in track 01, i have to use delay creating plugin in all other tracks to synchro all the stuff… Kinda distressing workaround. So till now i have to avoid all beautiful plugins that need host delay compensation support.

100% Agree here with you!

Any feedback about this topic ? Devs please.

We cannot use many of very useful plugins because of host automatic delay compenstation absence.

I agree, plugin delay compensation is v.important.

I’ve used that workaround many times and it’s not a complete solution - Because once all the tracks have been delayed by the same amount and are in sync with each other - if you then render each pattern to a separate file, or render selections to samples, you get short bits of silence at the beginning, and truncated ends, which can be a pain in the 4R53 if you’re importing things into Live for example.

I believe plugin delay compensation (per-track) should work in the same way as the existing per-instrument midi delay, but with the addition of an auto-detect checkbox (I’m sure the exact delay could be calculated somehow? I’ve seen other hosts doing it)

Hope this all makes sense, was written in a bit of a rush…

Hey on the same subject, does anyone know of a tool to measure the latency of a plugin? I usually try and figure it out by adding this plug into the mix:

http://www.voxengo.com/product/sampledelay/

Yeah thats what I use.

And then do something like this:

  • Send some short clicking sounds through the latency-heavy track
  • Render the result
  • Cut out the silence (latency) from the start of the rendered sample
  • Place the sample on a separate track with no FX
  • Add sampledelay to the new track
  • Play both tracks simultaneously and ‘tune in’ the sampledelay until the clicks sound in sync

there are numerous threads with people asking for PDC-implementation into renoise and i also miss that feature a damn lot.
the devs sure know about the importance and the need, but making it become reality in renoise requires plenty of time consuming labour and changes to the current VST handling.
i’m positive we will see a delay compensating renoise as soon as taktik actually finds the required time - just be patient.

and conerning those workarounds - manually adjusting the latency becomes really funny as soon as you need delay-causing plugins on sends or have multiple on them on different chains.
it’s just not feasible.

Yeah, I think it is on the horizon.

I dont find it a major issue, to be honest. I work with sample data most of the time, and have a phobia of leaving tracks and samples unrendered when there is a VST applied. As soon as I find something I like, it gets rendered and the manipulating really kicks in!

I can see why it would be annoying though, to people who work with VSTs on each track without rendering.

not a elegant to apply dalay compensation to all other tracks
more inteligent would be to apply correction to track witch is affected be vst with big latency
or send all tacks to one “sendtrack” and than apply dcompen vst

true, but that’s how PDC actually works - be it manually or automatically.
the industry certainly welcomes a new and more elegant way to approach this issue, so there you go.

it seems you don’t know much about how such “correction” tools actually work. you can not reduce the latency of a track by adding another plugin - but that’s exactly what would be required in order to work around the problem as you described it.
so that’s a no go.

by doing that you will ruin the flexiblity and functionality of the send tracks for merely using them to compensate a latency.
apart from that, the whole thing will become ridiculously cumbersome as soon as more than one delay causing plugin is involved.

just imagine you have a plugin on track 1 which causes a 500ms delay and on track 2 you have one which causes 950ms of delay, track 3 is delayed by 1050ms due to a plugin and the rest is all undelayed.
now you want track one and two to be routed to a delay causing compressor plugin on send 01.
let me know your compensating setup for this solved by send tracks.

How about using / paying for plug-ins that don’t suck?

Rumor has it that the next version of Renoise will require you to have this installed:

Going along with the idea I’ve suggested above, to get around the impossible time-travel problem - you should not be able to adjust the timing offset of a track into negative values that go beyond the master latency Renoise is set to, and if you click the ‘auto-detect’ checkbox, a dialog could popup saying: this is impossible unless the master latency is set to xxx - {adjust latency} {cancel}

Or something…

As others have said, the result of this would be to delay all other tracks so the laggy track catches up.
Is this a nightmare to code? Does it open up a whole can of worms?

just because a plugin causes delay doesn’t necessarily imply that it is poorly coded.
actually most of those plugs have to “look-ahead” in the audio signal stream in order to work as they’re supposed to and therefore inevitably cause a delay respectively.

Yeah, some of the Voxengo plugs suffer from this and they definitely do not suck!

As it mentioned before: There are plenly of plugins that need PDC-implementation in Renoise like beautiful realistic convolution reverberation plugins (Waves IR1, Cakewalk Perfect Space Convolution Reverb and many more), phase neutral digital eq’s like PSP Neon, or special FX plugs like unique indispensable Native Instruments Spectral Delay and more-more etc…

Spektral Delay!

That is a blast from the past!

Yeah! But that’s really unique plugin with unlike any other possibilities.
Moreover - yesterday i’ve try Elevayta Space Boy. Another superb plugin. And appears it’s also needs support of PDC :(

Yeah, I remember it being pretty cool. I might have to have another look at it and see what sounds it can come up with…