Virus TI plays notes *before* Cubase 7 sends them.

  • This usually is the case when VC is loaded but instead of taking the sound output of the plugin, you use the analog outputs through your audio interface. Is that your situation?


    How do you actually change that? I mean, if I have a soundcard, don't I have to use it at all then? don't really get the point.


    Answers are highly appreciated.


    EDIT: I have the same problem but in Ableton Live 9, and it's actually AFTER ableton plays the notes, so its' delayed, for me atleast.


    Thanks!

  • From my experience 'playing before' and 'playing after' is usually not the same problem (and cause). Do you draw your notes or record them? If I remember correctly, Ableton Live does its delay compensation (more on that later) by putting the recorded MIDI notes a little earlier than expected when looking at the bar/beat grid (and then they sound in time). If you draw them by hand according to the ruler, they will play delayed, so the best solution is to nudge the clip to the left by a constant amount of milliseconds.


    The Virus can work in a number of modes but what's common to all of them is turning MIDI into audio. MIDI can be sent between the Virus and the computer using the traditional MIDI cables or USB, and in a similar way audio can be sent over analog cables or over USB. So you can (1) use the Virus like traditional analog equipment, connect its MIDI and audio ports to your soundcard and create tracks for the soundcard ports you used (audio and MIDI), or (2) use MIDI over USB instead of the MIDI cables, so in Live you create a track for the Virus synth ports instead of your soundcard's MIDI ports, but the audio is transmitted the same way as before. Option (3) is quite different in the sense that it doesn't deal with ports at all. Once you load VC, the Virus is regarded by the DAW as a soft synth that sends its audio processing to a different processing unit than the computer's CPU. The need to buffer the audio coming back over USB after processing, causes VC to have delay. This is not an unusual thing - many plugins that look ahead as they process (such as some compressors) have delay as well. DAW-s make up for that by using delay compensation, but not all DAW-s implement delay compensation the same way. OF course, in option 3 you still need your soundcard in order to hear the final mix, but you don't need it for interfacing with the Virus.


    Hopefully I'm not too vague.

  • So the suggestion would be to use the midi and connect it into my soundcard? I'm not sure I'm getting you here mate.. thanks for the info, but I really have to understand this.

  • Depends on your workflow. If you want consistent timing and don't have to have the plugin for the GUI then yes, connect through soundcard.


    I need the GUI, I'm only using the GUI tbh.. and I wanna keep it that way

  • If you insist on using VC (the GUI) you have to go around the delay compensation.
    There are a few things to consider:
    - Which method of output you will use. The analog outs play without delay. The return audio to the plugin plays with delay, and using the "live" button (bottom left) you can decide if you want long or short delay. You can select an output for each part using either the "direct" button on the left side, or the common page.
    - Live's delay compensation option on/off from the Options menu.
    - Whether you are playing and recording a MIDI controller, or drawing notes. In some combinations of the above options you will have to nudge one type of MIDI clips.

  • If you insist on using VC (the GUI) you have to go around the delay compensation.
    There are a few things to consider:
    - Which method of output you will use. The analog outs play without delay. The return audio to the plugin plays with delay, and using the "live" button (bottom left) you can decide if you want long or short delay. You can select an output for each part using either the "direct" button on the left side, or the common page.
    - Live's delay compensation option on/off from the Options menu.
    - Whether you are playing and recording a MIDI controller, or drawing notes. In some combinations of the above options you will have to nudge one type of MIDI clips.


    So, lets say I want to use the GUI. Which I want!


    And I want no delay.


    Do I press the "LIVE" button to keep it in sync?


    Lets say I draw in notes by clicking inside of Ableton Live 9. What should I do then?


    And what should I do when I play the notes that are triggered by my midi controller (piano) ?


    When I press "redirect", no sound is heared at all.


    Lets say I want to use the analogue out (which is MIDI out I suppose?) Can I still use the GUI? will this solve the problem? thanks for bearing with me, kinda confused here hehe.


    Thanks!

  • Also the delay compensation within Ableton seems like alot of work to just get it in sync, so I rather skip that. I really can't be arsed to spend 5-10 min on each sound just to get it in sync using the delay compensation.


    Thanks.

  • We are starting to scratch the limits of my knowledge of Live so if any Live expert wants to chime in...

    Lets say I want to use the analogue out (which is MIDI out I suppose?) Can I still use the GUI? will this solve the problem?

    The analog outs are the TRS pair (in the Snow one of them can double as headphones out). Connect them to your audio interface inputs, create a track for them in Live and arm/monitor it. You can still use the GUI, and tell it to output the sound through the analog outs using the "direct" button or "common" page as mentioned above.

    When I press "redirect", no sound is heared at all.

    You need to build a path for the return audio, meaning connecting TRS cable and creating a track as mentioned above.

    Lets say I draw in notes by clicking inside of Ableton Live 9. What should I do then?


    And what should I do when I play the notes that are triggered by my midi controller (piano) ?

    In the setup detailed above, drawn notes should play in time and the notes of recorded clips would appear a little too early, so you'll probably have to nudge/quantize them.

    Do I press the "LIVE" button to keep it in sync?

    In the setup detailed above, the live button will have no effect on playback. However, if you record MIDI in each of the modes, you'll see that with live mode on the recorded notes appear less early than with live off.
    There are other setups you can create between Live, the Virus and your audio interface, but let's start with this one to minimize confusion.

  • Hi there. Thought I'd post some random information that's helped me solve my latency issues in the past.


    The 'LIVE' button is to reduce the delay so you can play the Virus TI with less latency, but this suppresses the delay compensation when using the Virus Control plugin and will make it go out of time when playing back a project.


    You can use the Virus Control plugin as long as you do these things:


    1. Optimise BIOS settings. DISABLE all of the CPU power saving states (C1, C3, and all of that.) DISABLE CPU throttling, TurboBoost® and all of that fancy Jazz. You can keep Hyperthreading and all cores active, though.
    2. Invest in a dedicated USB 2.0 PCI or PCI-e controller card ONLY for the Virus TI with nothing else plugged into it. I would advise NOT to buy a USB 3.0 card for the Virus TI. I have tested it in different USB 3.0 ports on different systems with the same result; It doesn't like it. Save your money and some time.
    3. Buy as short a USB cable as possible. Gold plated conntectors if possible, or just ones that won't tarnish over time. This prevents any connection issues when USB is running in high speed mode.
    4. Update to the latest Virus TI OS. I haven't found any bugs with version 5.0.4.02. Some people are still using 4.5.3 due to issues with 4.6.xx and so on, but I upgraded to 5.0.4.02 and haven't looked back!
    5. Run some scientific tests by exporting projects with a known reference (see below). Plot down the results on a piece of paper or in notepad. This will be helpful in identifying any latency/timing issues as well as other issues.


    Here's one test I just ran on my system, which is specced as follows:


    Windows 7 (64bit)
    Cubase 7.0.5 (64bit)
    Intel 980X Processor 3.46GHz
    12GB DDR3 (1333MHz)
    MOTU 24i/o audio interface (running ASIO in Cubase)
    Adobe Audition 3.0 (best version in my opinion)
    Virus TI (OS: 5.0.4.02)
    Virus Control VST plugins (64bit) (VST2 and VST3 both tested)


    Test conditions: All BIOS, CPU, Windows and Cubase tweaks applied. Short USB cable used. Separate PCI-e USB 2.0 controller card dedicated for Virus TI. Virus Control (2 outputs No inputs). USB 1 output selected for test. P.S. I find that selecting '3 outputs No inputs' can cause more problems with the Virus TI jumping about and not being able to lock onto the project tempo. Maybe this is due to it requiring a little more USB bandwidth.
    Test details: 0.5 second audio Dirac spikes on an audio track, panned hard left and used as a solid latency reference. Each synthesizer panned hard right and tested individually using a 1/16 note sawtooth wave played once every 0.5 seconds. Test tempo = 120BPM. Exported/recorded audio files measured in Adobe Audition to check the synthesizer delay or pre-delay compared to the Dirac spikes.


    I exported the audio in real-time as well as recording through a separate sound card and got identical results. I compared the latency of the Virus Control plugin (64bit), Virus Control using Arpeggiator, Genesis CM (32bit) plugin and Native Instruments Massive (64bit) plugin.


    RESULTS


    =====================================
    Delay Compensation - Latency Measurements
    =====================================
    44.1kHz sampling rate / ASIO 128 sample buffer


    Virus TI (USB1):
    -5 to +6 samples
    Compensation required: None


    Genesis CM 1.02:
    +286 samples OR +6.485ms
    Compensation required: -6.49ms


    NI Massive:
    +33 to +56 samples OR +0.748ms to +1.270ms
    Compensation required: -1.01ms (avg.)


    I had a feeling that the Virus TI was out of time, as I had problems with it in the past, but it was in fact some of my other plugins. Now I have run some tests using the Dirac spike method, I know which plugins to pre-delay on the channels in the project.


    I hope this might be of some help. If not, I'm sorry.