Control Room latency problem?

Hey there,
I am using some EQ and spatial correction on my headphones (monitor “B” in the control room)


which obviously introduces latency. Thats fine, cause I am using that only when mixing.

However, when tracking and using my main monitors (monitor “A” in the control room), then the latency of monitor “B” is applied as well to the output, even if it is not active and no audio is running through that path.

Consequence is, that when tracking I’d have to always disable the plugins in monitor B, even if there is no audio running through it.

This is just one use case. If you have multiple plugins for multiple monitors, this issue gets even bigger. Hopefully, this can be turned off somewhere?

I can confirm this. I have sonarworks sound ID on speaker A and B. On A I have low latency mode on the plugin and on B linear phase which has around 30ms latency. Unless I put them both on low latency then I get 30ms latency even though B is not being used.

So it looks like the latency on different outputs are not independent. I agree that this should not be so.

2 Likes

Thanks for confirming.

Heavy processed busses also don’t introduce any latency when recording, if theres nothing routed through them. Same should be the case here. Unfortunately this is not happening.

Steinberg guys can we get an answer on this? Is it a bug? It is easy to recreate. Just put an insert which would cause high latency into output B in control room and then hear the latency in output A when selected when playing a vsti

My (totally uninformed) guess is that it’s on purpose, because it allows for easy and seamless switching between monitors during playback. Else, if you switched between two outputs with different latency, you’d either get some sort of dropout noise because the buffers aren’t aligned anymore. Kind of like the issue when inserting plugins with latency while playing, and people are complaining about that already.
Not saying it’s not possible, but probably more complicated.

3 Likes

I see what you’re saying but I don’t really go with that. It should be down to the user and should only be linked if required. I can’t see anything difficult in a software switch over. You may get a jump if latency is different on one than the other.

Just to let you know. My workaround is to have different Control room presets for the different tasks.
So when I am recording I am using a control room preset, where all low latency plugins are used and when mixing I use the ones which introduce latency.