Setup guide
Chapter 4: Configuring Your Pro Tools System 45
To change the default Sample Rate in the 
Playback Engine:
1 Choose Setup > Playback Engine. 
2 Select the sample rate from the Sample Rate 
pop-up menu.
3 Click OK.
Delay Compensation Engine
The Delay Compensation Engine determines 
how much DSP resources are dedicated for Delay 
Compensation, which managing DSP delays in 
the Pro Tools mixer.
Within a session, you can choose to enable or 
disable Delay Compensation (Options > Delay 
Compensation).
Delay Compensation automatically manages 
DSP delays that occur on audio tracks, Auxiliary 
Inputs, or Master Faders because of plug-in use 
and mixer routing. With Delay Compensation 
enabled, Pro Tools maintains phase coherent 
time alignment between track outputs that have 
plug-ins with differing DSP delays, tracks with 
different mixing paths, tracks that are split off 
and recombined within the mixer, and tracks 
with hardware inserts. 
To maintain phase coherent time alignment, 
Pro Tools adds the exact amount of delay to 
each track necessary to make that particular 
track’s delay equal to the total system delay. The 
System Delay is shown in the Session Setup win-
dow.
Delay Compensation should be enabled during 
mixing and playback for phase coherent time 
alignment between track outputs.
When recording, in most cases Delay Compen-
sation can be enabled. However, it is still recom-
mended that you disable Delay Compensation 
for certain dubbing workflows (such as when re-
cording to multiple audio tracks in series).
To configure the Delay Compensation Engine:
1 Choose Setup > Playback Engine. 
2 From the Delay Compensation Engine pop-up 
menu, select a Delay Compensation setting.
3 Click OK.
You can change the sample rate when 
creating a new Pro Tools session by 
selecting a different sample rate in the 
New Session dialog.
You can also change the default Sample 
Rate in the Hardware dialog, as long as 
no session is open.
With Delay Compensation enabled, it is 
recommended that you do not use any in-
serts on any Auxiliary Input or Master 
Fader tracks you may be using to control the 
cue mix volume. Also, you should avoid us-
ing inserts on any record tracks. (Some low 
latency inserts may be acceptable depend-
ing on the talent
∂
s preference.)
For more information on using Delay Com-
pensation, see the Pro Tools Reference 
Guide.










