Hello

I was experiencing some problems in general with latency/jittering and I formatted the computer to try to understand which was the problem
Still haven't found, in the mean time I also wanted to find some ideas of setup for production and mixing

Production:

I use an MPC as main sequencer for all midi stuff (synths, samplers) and I also record instruments, vocals.
I need/prefer to not use automatic delay compensation in Pro Tools 9 and Ableton 8, so the latency doesn't depend to the buffer size
I'd like to be able to use a MIO strip in all 16 channels (I reserve bus 17/18 for the master bus.
From what I know in Ableton isn't possible to manually compensate delay (am I wrong?) Do you know any work around?

In Pro Tools I can manually compensate delay and that means, in my case, adjusting all the other tracks (except the ones with the insert to the MIO Mixer) putting a 117 samples delay (It is reported 116 in the manual I think and I don't know why, but in my experience it nulls at 117)
I also noticed this delay changes, I think depending on the buffer size (but here I don't remember exactly what I've done, as soon as I can I'll check and report back) till a 1400 and something, samples

Is all this "random"? Because I noticed some strange behavior that still I haven't had the time to figure out if I was doing something wrong or not

Mixing:

I'd like to be able to use the MIO strip in each track then returning back to PT to add some processing... Till now I only have used the MIO Mixer to sum 16 tracks or 8 mono 4 stereo, and I'm still a bit undecided about which is the best setup for mixing
Every time I tried the inserts, I don't know why, I don't know for what reasons, I don't know if my hears are fooled by something, but it always sounded a bit worst returning back to PT... seems like things sound more "free" going from Pro Tools into the MIO Mixer instead returning back to PT and sum in PT

With "free" I mean, more defined, "free to move", not collapsed, more dynamic, in a word I'd say "intact", while returning back to PT sound more blurred and distant and narrow

Which is the panning law here, in PT I keep it at 3 and in the Manual I read somewhere the MIO Mixer is at 3, but I noticed PT lowers 3 db on mono signals, while the MIO Mixer doesn't

I've also tried just 16 mono tracks going to the MIO Mixer vs using inserts (avoiding using other tracks that don't pass thru the MIO Mixer, so latency isn't involved) and I still heard a difference in worse returning back to PT

Is this normal? Is it Pro Tools that "sounds/sum worse"? Do you experience the same problem? I would put this in the world of "subtle hearing" but if my attention is focused the difference is quite evident

Why this?

In general I had bad experiences with automatic delay compensation (particularly in Logic, and less but also in Ableton, (in PT I never used ADC, because it's actually the only one that's very usable even without it) like sending to reverbs, fx, sounded much more blurred and separate from the original track and also more fake (compared to Pro Tools) and also using busses and parallel compression (on parallel compression was so obvious that I couldn't use this technique anymore)
Also, the more the CPU was loaded the more everything sounded degraded to my hears (even opening the session months later with fresh hears and actually those are the moments where I notice it more) and in the end Pro Tools sounds with more dimension and transients in the lows are more intact, everything is more focused (compared to Logic and Ableton) at least that's my experience and I think could depend to the way Logic or Ableton, automatically compensate and the way they sum (I don't know, is there more there?)

many of our users report that summing using MIO Console sounds better than using the built-in mixer in the DAW.

allen_gibberish wrote on Fri, 18 January 2013 11:09

many of our users report that summing using MIO Console sounds better than using the built-in mixer in the DAW.

How do you technically explain this considering it nulls with the other DAWS? (I did some tests...)