Working with External Devices - Latency Issues

Cubase
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1

Hi there,

I’ve been working with external synths and MIDI modules often lately, but I have started noticing some issues with latency added by plug-ins (eg. plug-ins such as Ozone, applied to the master channel) and external devices (eg. rack synth), which makes everything sound out of sync.

I could disable the Monitor button in Cubase and use the zero-latency monitoring of my soundcard (Apogee Duet), but the problem comes when I have to export the whole song or apply effects to the external devices inside Cubase (without the Monitor button enabled, no external devices get recorded / exported).

If I use the Constrain Delay Compensation option, it will just disable the effect plug-ins that add latency. Not very helpful when I have to export the final mixdown.

At the moment, the only workaround I found is to manually add a negative delay to each MIDI channel which corresponds to the output delay of my ASIO driver (I’m using an Apogee Duet) plus the latency introduced by the plug-ins that I’m using (I can check those values in the Cubase 10.5 MixConsole).

I was expecting Cubase to do that calculation during the export process, in order to output a file with no delayed audio / MIDI tracks… but that is not the case.

What’s weird is that I worked a lot with external devices over the years, and don’t remember to have had such issue before Cubase 10.5… will probably try doing more tests using 9.5 version. Does anyone have a the same problem and have found a solution for this?

2

Hi,

Cubase should compensate it. Could you describe your routing more in detail (maybe some screenshots would help), please? Do you use External Instrument in the Audio Connections window?

3

Thanks for your reply!

I actually didn’t set up any External Instrument in Audio Connection, could that be the problem? Since I have only one stereo input available on my interface (I’m currently using only one synth at a time, switching cables when needed), I felt that it was not necessary. I have just created a MIDI Device for each synth, assigned the specific Cubase Patchscript and activated a monitoring audio track.

4

Hi,

When the Monitor is enabled on the Audio Track then the Audio track is not compensated, it works in the real time. obviously, it cannot be monitored in real time and shifted at the same time.