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Hi,
I use JJazzlab for rapid backing track creation to generate 4-6 MIDI tracks perfectly in sync. I created a MIDI bus with a GM soundfont in my sequencer (Qtractor) and route all tracks to this bus and it works fine.
But when I disable the soundfont only for the drums and add a drum plugin to the drum track everything gets out of sync. It seems that plugins have a different latency? How should I proceed?
Frank
I'm not too adept at this stuff, but a couple of possibilities come to mind...
For clarity: are you creating the tracks in JJazzLab and then exporting them into QTractor (so that at this point you are only using QTractor), or are you playing them out from JJazzlab into QTractor (with the soundfont in QTractor but the drum plugin in JJazzLab)? If your drum plugin is in JJazzLab but the other sounds are in QTractor, I would guess that all your soundfont instruments have a bit more latency from making the trip to another program. When you were using the soundfont for everything, that latency would still have existed, but you wouldn't have noticed because they were in sync with each other.
If the above is the case, you might try creating a separate bus in QTractor and using the drum plugin there rather than in JJazzLab. If you only made the tracks in JJazzLab but they are all now running in QTractor:
-maybe try creating a separate bus just for the drums and put the drum plugin on that bus rather than on the track. It could be that there is a slight difference in latency between plugin-on-bus versus plugin-on-track
-if you are using ALSA for sound, you might try using JACK instead. You can play with different settings to reduce latency with JACK in a way that I don't think you can with ALSA. (Or maybe your Linux uses Pipewire. I haven't used that yet so don't know anything about its options.)
-if you change the title of your post to include the name "QTractor," it's possible RNCBC will see it and comment. He's the one who makes QTractor and can often be found lurking on Linux Musicians.
I hope my response makes sense.
Good luck!
Hi,
thanks for the quick reply. I am exporting the MIDI file in JJazzlab and then import the tracks into qtractor. When all tracks use the same plugin everything is fine. How do I compensate different plugin latencies?
Frank
I don't use QTractor, but in MusE, in the properties of every single midi track, one can set a "delay" amount, which offsets the playback of that midi track by a positive or negative amount. QTractor may offer the same functionality.
I haven't used this option, but looking at Impostor's suggestion above, I can see that if you double-click on your drum midi track (to bring up your midi clip for editing), then go to File - Properties, you will see under Parameters, there is an "Offset" option. Maybe try messing with that. Or if it makes more sense, maybe leave the drum track alone and offset each of the other tracks by the same amount.
I also haven't used a bus in the way you're using it, to route tracks to it for an effect. I always just put the effect on each track. My guess is that the latency might come from that one drum track not being routed out to the bus. If your computer has enough RAM, you might try adding the soundfont to each track rather than routing them all to another track.
fraslo wrote: ↑Wed Dec 21, 2022 8:55 pmI use JJazzlab for rapid backing track creation to generate 4-6 MIDI tracks perfectly in sync. I created a MIDI bus with a GM soundfont in my sequencer (Qtractor) and route all tracks to this bus and it works fine.
But when I disable the soundfont only for the drums and add a drum plugin to the drum track everything gets out of sync. It seems that plugins have a different latency? How should I proceed?
are you using a plugin inserted in this MIDI out bus? if not, is it an external instrument? in the later case, you ought to know that's kinda never be in perfect sync with internal material; the best case scenario is about separating the track with the internal plugin and add some amount of delay offset to it. exactly as someone proposed here before.
Hi,
I am using Calf Fluidsynth on the MIDI bus and the Black Pearl Drumkit for testing. The mentioned offset can only have positive values, so I will try to sync the clips. Thanks for all the help.
Frank