Trying to Understand 'ASIO Latency Compensation' and 'Add Latency to MIDI Though Processing'

Hi all,

I came across this video from Daniel Ayo who is suggesting that the preferences → Record → MIDI → ‘ASIO Latency Compensation’ and ‘Add Latency to MIDI Though Processing’ should be selected.

So, Daniel described how opening a piano from Halion, without ‘ASIO Latency Compensation’ and ‘Add Latency to MIDI Though Processing’ being selected, when exporting said piano, the audio (export) is considerably out of sync with the MIDI.

When he selected these two functions, on his test, the audio was 100% synced with the MIDI.

Here is the video:

So, here is the thing.

Firstly, I run the test and on my system, the difference between the two results was extremely small.

But,

I followed the instructions, and there is now a massive latency when the ‘ASIO Latency Compensation’ is on. Things are back to normal when it’s off.

Can someone, please enlighten me as of what does ‘ASIO Latency Compensation’ is for?
Is it only for exporting purposes?

In addition,

What does ‘Add Latency to MIDI Though Processing’ do?

More to the point, is there an important benefit from these functions?

1 Like

Nobody can chime into this?

Hi,

This is what the manual says.

Thank you Martin,

This though made zero sense to me:

"ASIO Latency Compensation Active by Default

Determines the initial state of the ASIO Latency Compensation button in the track list for MIDI or instrument tracks.

If you record live on a VST instrument, you usually compensate the latency of your audio card by playing too early. In consequence, the timestamps are recorded too early. By activating this option, all recorded events are moved by the current latency, and playback sounds like during the recording situation."

When the Latency Compensation is ON the latency on my system goes through the roof, is it supposed to do that?

Hi,

This preferences is just about the default (init) state of the given button, when you create a new Instrument or MIDI track.

Off:

On:

Martin , sorry man, I don’t want to take up your time, thanks so much for your efforts to explain.

I get the function, what I have trouble understanding , is that when the ASIO Latency Compensation is ‘ON’ when I play a VSTi, the latency goes through the roof… This is what I don’t get. is it supposed to be this way?

Hi,

Do you mean, you get much higher latency while recording, if you enable this option?

Yeah, that’s what I was trying to say. Many thanks