External Instruments Latency Compensation

Cubase
1

Hi,
Greetings. It’s been a while since I last posted…
I’m trying to gain an understanding of why I always have to alter track delays of MIDI tracks for hardware synths whenever I change the latency of my soundcard (RME Multiface).

I’ve recently brought in more hardware MIDI synths that I’m mixing within Cubase via realtime audio inputs.

If I select a large buffer size and then record an instrument that’s controlled by a MIDI track, the resulting audio is in sync with a VSTi track playing the same part, but way out with the originating hardware synth part coming in “live”. I assume that’s because of the input latency. So evidently Cubase is aware of that latency and has compensated by advancing the resulting audio track.

I’d like to be able to make the hardware synth input latencies authoritative so that they remain in time with the other tracks whenever the buffer size is changed throughout the tracking to mixing process.

Is this possible, and if so could some one please spell out to me how to do it?

Sorry if this is a basic question :blush:

Thanks,
Roger :smiley:

2

I just monitor my hardware synth through total mix myself unless im using a plugin of some sort.then i drop buffer size record it then i disable the midi track but keep it incase i want to reuse it at a later day.

3

Yes that a workaround for monitoring if you don’t need to process within Cubase. Trouble with my setup is that the external synths I use don’t have built in fx.

I usually just advance the midi track playback until the synths are in time, but it does feel a bit like the days before PDC was provided.

If it can’t be done yet, does anyone else agree that automatic latency compensation for external instruments would be a good feature to request?