User friendly monitoring option in Mixer

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DjNotSo
Tue Jul 20, 2021 4:32 pm

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User friendly monitoring option in Mixer

I apologize in advance for the long text but this is a rather complex topic.

For typical tracking duties (recording vocals/instruments) you generally want the lowest possible signal feedback (INPUT->OUTPUT) on recording and you want it to be INDEPENDENT of the overall project latency i.e. you want your fed back (recorded) signal to be delayed by no more than the latency in the path from INPUT->OUTPUT.

This is possible to accomplish by:

* Routing recording inserts directly to an output
* Disabling the output "Compensate for master latency" option AND
* Disconnect route to master (or you will get one direct and one delayed signal heard back)

This is not super simple and there are snags:

* During recording you want the output "Compensate for master latency" option DISABLED (to avoid incurring project latency PDC compensation to the fed back signal) while during playback of the recording you want it ENABLED (to make sure that the played back audio is aligned with the rest of the project)
* You also want previous takes from the same recording "session" (and by session I don't mean the entire joyful evening but from pressing record until stop) to be compensated (if using blend recording) while directly routing your feedback signal.
* The "Compensate for master latency" option is ENABLED by default if an output is selected. It is a very technical term that I think people in general would have problems understanding.
* A route to master may still be needed for proper playback (depending on scenario)

I would like to see a solution that would manage this in a simpler and automatic way.

Proposal:

1. Remove the input "Compensate for master latency" option
- In-fact, what is the purpose of this option? It is currently needed for accurate placement of audio but I'm not sure when you would want to disable it.
2. Add a direct monitoring radio button to mixer inserts
3. Prompt user, asking whether direct monitoring should be turned on when selecting an input
4. When enabling, directly or indirectly, prompt user to select an output if one is not set

and then:

5. If direct monitoring is enabled at recording, DO NOT apply PDC for fed back audio i.e. ignore the output "Compensate for master latency" option (and implicit delay from a route to master or other insert) AND
5.1 DO NOT route fed back audio to master.

NOTE: This would require two logical internal paths (playback and feedback) to treat audio differently depending on source (e.g. at over-dubbing), perhaps the simplest way would be to create separate insert track chains for fed back and played back audio in this case (hidden from the user of course). I'm wondering if perhaps you have two such paths already following the pre/post recording additions?

That is my proposal which I hope is free of side effects and backwards compatible. It would make life a lot easier and provide a more straight forward and understandable process I think.

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