Problems with Logic (Set negative delay on tracks PLUS notes recorded early on piano roll)

1. if you turn on the secondary ruler (under "view" in the arrange window), you can use the marque to select the part from the 1st note start to the second and it shows the start, end and length of your duration.

2. what you can do it have your instrument play with negative delay set to zero, play a few notes on the beat and quantise them. then use this tool to see how far they are from where the midi notes are.

3. first of all, are you sure you are playing the notes perfectly? maybe your timing is a bit ahead?
another thing where this sometimes happens is when you use the low latency mode when recording. not sure if that a bug or not

1. sure, I tried what you say but it doesn't show milliseconds... only ticks and I have to calculate each time how much ms they correspond to
2. The solution I found is to quantise and then bounce that to see how delayed the resulting audio waveform is...

3. yes, I use low latency mode sometimes.. so that could be the problem?

The simplest way to calculate delay is to playback some MIDI with the metronome on. Different notes will be cut differently, so nothing ever lines up with the grid evenly or exactly... So even if you use a time ruler you'll still need to look at multiple notes across time, and figure out an average that works...

I find it quicker to turn on the click and nudge the track delay until you hear it lock... It takes a little practice (hardly any TBH), pretty quickly you learn how to hear if a delay setting's causing the patch to sound ahead of, or behind the click. Once you can tell if it's just ahead, or just behind you can quickly zero in on the best overall setting (if the library doesn't specify one)... The more you do it the more you can gauge roughly what it is when you listen... Usually within a couple of seconds you've figured it out, sometimes you nail right away...

Daniele Nasuti said:

Is there a way in Logic to see exactly how many milliseconds there are between 2 points or in a selection?

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Check your Event List.

Daniele Nasuti said:

1. Is there a way in Logic to see exactly how many milliseconds there are between 2 points or in a selection?

2. I need to set negative delay for orchestral stock instruments inside logic (StudioStrings, StudioBrass and some EXS24 instruments). Some of you has already done that? It’s difficult to understand how much neg.delay for each track is needed.

3. I’m having a problem with notes on piano roll because even if I play well at the right time the notes are always recorded 30/40ms before the grids. (Why this happens? It’s because my low performance Mac or a Logic problem)

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Do you have the second ruler engaged?

@onnomusic @Kent good advice but doesn't tell me milliseconds there.

The right way was to go in preferences and set the display SMPTE into milliseconds instead of frames

@jcrosby right, using ears is better but if there are lots of tracks could be wrong sometimes. I thought I could just record simple notes, quantise 100% and then copy on all tracks and then bounce all them separated in new tracks to see the milliseconds (with this option activated on display) between the start of midi note and the start of audio.

Daniele Nasuti said:

@onnomusic @Kent good advice but doesn't tell me milliseconds there.

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It actually does:


(But yes, I do think you need to have milliseconds as your time display)

Daniele Nasuti said:

3. yes, I use low latency mode sometimes.. so that could be the problem?

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When there is high latency, we will tend to hit the notes a little early to compensate.

probably, but I need some more tests to see if it's really m fault or not.

Daniele Nasuti said:

probably, but I need some more tests to see if it's really m fault or not.

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Well, if that’s what happened and the SOUND while playing happened on time, it really isn’t your fault. When playing in live and want the playing to be good enough to NOT quantize, I make sure that the buffer settings are low. But for orchestral stuff, for example, where there’s extra time baked into the samples for attack noises, it’s just the way it is. Play it in and quantize.

Real string players are starting their attack slightly before where the note sounds. When you play into the DAW, you will do the same thing if the sound has a longer attack time.

ok, I understand what you say. Maybe it's just like that.
The only solution then would be negative delay

Daniele Nasuti said:

ok, I understand what you say. Maybe it's just like that.
The only solution then would be negative delay

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If you quantize back to the grid, yes.

Negative delay does not affect the notes coming in as you play.

Negative delay is mimicking, at playback, what you do when you hit the keys early to make it sound right, or what the string player does by moving the bow before the sound actually starts.

aah ok, didn't know it!! Thanks a lot!!

ok so what buffer you use to have good results? Is 128 enough?
In any case as you said quantise is the way to go.

Daniele Nasuti said:

ok so what buffer you use to have good results? Is 128 enough?

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It depends on the capability of your computer and what’s in your project.

Lower buffer setting is lower latency, and more responsive for playing in live, but takes more machine power. When I play piano parts in, for example, I set buffers low, at 64. I want to play it well enough to not quantize.

But if there’s a lot orchestral stuff going in the project, that setting may cause some noise at playback…when the machine can’t quite keep up. I will raise to 512 or even 1028 when I’m playing a lot of orchestral parts….I’m going to quantize those anyway.

So you have to experiment and find the lowest setting that works for you.

For what it’s worth, the buffer setting is ignored when you bounce out your project, so you don’t have to worry about having it too low. Logic will take the time to make sure it gets everything processed cleanly.

ok, thank you very much!