Delay for the click sound

Well, i’ll try to be as clear as possible : with today’s virtual instruments, we frequently have complex scripts involved that create a delay in response, for example let’s say 140 ms. That means when you press a key, the sound appears 140 ms later (in this example), creating a delay between the playing and the hearing. But the click stays in time and sound in time. So it could be usefull to be able to delay the click sound according to the delay involved in the Vi you’re using, so that it sounds delayed in comparison to what’s recorded in midi.
Clear ?

Would the “Track Delay” function found in the inspector help with your concern? It does not change the click timing but it does correct when the sound is played back.

Regards :sunglasses:

Hey, Prock ! Thanks for the suggestion. That’s actually what i’m using, but not with the built in click, with a click bounced to an audio track ! Works fine, but it’s a workaround.
cheers ! :sunglasses:

Jules:

Let me ask you something. As I understand it, you’d be playing an instrument via MIDI and the latency settings would make it sound (in your example) 140ms late. So what you’d like is to be able to do is adjust the click to sound 140ms late. Right?

Now, of course, after recording, you play the track back and Cubase shifts it into time, so it plays in time with the tempo. Correct?

I get the idea and at first glance, it seems reasonable….but I see a potential problem with this. If you were playing to a click that was shifted by 140ms. wouldn’t you wind up with a recording that’s 140ms out of time….because that’s what you listened to during performance as a reference? When Cubase finishes the recording, isn’t it going to shift the track 140ms to compensate for the latency? Wouldn’t it now be out of time with the rest of the track….by 140ms.

Am I missing something? Just asking.

Sounds completely backwards to me.
The click is the correct time, everything else has to be compensated to that.
This can be done both global and for individual tracks, so I really don’t understand this request.

That’s exact. I had this idea a few days ago when i was trying to record a violin part at first. 140 ms delay on the instrument (no other choice, it’s by design), empty project, and the click was dead on time, and it was just impossible to record this part properly with a 140 ms gap between the sound of the instrument and the sound of the click. Of course, once you’re in the middle of a project, with instruments, percussions, drums, already recorded, it’s another scenario.

Jules:

Ok…I get your reasoning. First track out in the open.

Nothing personal, but I think this is one of those requests that’s kinda obscure enough that Steinberg will never consider throwing any programming resources at it.

In the meantime, what you’re doing now with a recorded click and Track Delay is probably your best workaround.

Yep. You may be right, and that’s what i thought at first. But with virtual instruments becoming more and more sophisticated & scripted to death, we’ll maybe have more and more of them needing some time to “read” the player’s interpretation. And that’s not as if steinberg had to code it from scratch : the delay is already implemented in cubase’s tracks, they just have to port it on the click. No big deal.
But i have the feeling you’re right : i’ll use my workaround for a loooong time, ahah.