However, all of our supported DAW environments have a feature known as Delay Compensation, which keeps all of your tracks time-aligned by delaying all your tracks by the same amount as the track with the greatest latency. The amount of latency each plug-in or plug-in chain you use will vary. All plug-ins, native or otherwise, will add some latency to the signal flow in your DAW. The other main source of latency in the DAW is the usage of latency-inducing plug-ins. Latency inducing Plug-Ins and Delay Compensation If you experience clicks, pops, or stuttering this is a sure sign that your buffer is too low. The downside to this is that you will experience more and more latency when monitoring input signals or playing virtual instruments in your DAW as you set the buffer size larger.Ī common workflow is to keep the buffer low (32 samples is the smallest value possible) while performing with software-based instruments and increase the buffer as needed when your session begins to get more complex. Your computer processor needs time to perform all the calculations required to render your music in real time, and the larger the buffer size, the more time your CPU has to get it's work done. The primary source of latency when monitoring input signals or playing virtual instruments in the DAW is your host I/O buffer size. Sources of Latency in the DAW: Host I/O Buffer These sources of latency are known and unavoidable, but our brains are more than accustomed to these small delays.

Likewise in a strictly analog recording setup, it takes a small amount of time for electricity to travel down a copper wire.

Even in the physical world, a certain amount of delay is unavoidable - it takes time for a sound wave to move through the air from the instrument to your ears. To begin, what do we mean by latency? Latency is a term used to describe the delay between the time you play a note and the time you hear that note. In this article we will guide you through what the realistic expectations around latency are with regards to the UAD-2 platform, as well as how to optimize your setup to achieve the best results. A common question we hear from customers is: “Why am I getting latency in my DAW sessions?” Indeed, the topic of latency is complex and at times mysterious.

Fl studio latency compensation