Specifications

Pro Tools Reference Guide428
Delay Compensation
(HD-series Systems with Pro Tools 6.4 Only)
Pro Tools provides Delay Compensation for
managing DSP delays that occur on audio
tracks, Auxiliary Inputs, or Master Faders be-
cause of plug-in use and mixer routing.
Pro Tools maintains time-alignment between
tracks that have plug-ins with differing DSP de-
lays, tracks with different mixing paths, tracks
that are split off and recombined within the
mixer, and tracks with hardware inserts.
To maintain time alignment, Pro Tools adds the
exact amount of delay to each track necessary to
make that particular track’s delay equal to the
delay of the track that has the longest delay.
Delay Compensation should be enabled during
mixing and playback for optimal delay compen-
sated sound. In some cases, Delay Compensa-
tion should be turned off when recording.
To enable Delay Compensation:
■ Choose Operations > Use Delay Compensa-
tion.
Delay Compensation Settings
There are three settings in the Playback Engine
dialog for dedicating DSP resources for Delay
Compensation:
None Allocates no DSP resources for automatic
delay compensation.
Short Allocates minimal DSP resources of delay
compensation for each channel. This is the
most efficient setting for Pro Tools|HD Accel
systems.
Long Allocates maximum DSP resources of delay
compensation for each mixer channel. Long de-
lay compensation uses the same DSP resources
used by high DSP overhead plug-ins.
To configure the Delay Compensation Engine:
1 Choose Setups > Playback Engine.
2 From the Delay Compensation Engine pop-up
menu, select a Delay compensation setting.
3 Click OK.
The delay compensation option will be saved as
a session and system preference.
Delay Compensation View
The Delay Compensation View displays the to-
tal amount of plug-in delay on each track, lets
you apply a user offset of track delay, and dis-
plays the total amount of delay that Pro Tools
applies to each track. The Delay Compensation
View can be shown in the Mix Window.
To view Delay Compensation information:
■ Choose Display > Mix Window Shows > Delay
Compensation View.
Delay values can be specified in either samples
or milliseconds, as determined in the Display
page of the Preferences dialog.
Delay Compensation view
Plug-in
User Offset
Track Compensation
indicator
Delay indicator