Low-Latency Recording with Virtual MIDI Instruments and Delay Compensation

When a MIDI or Instrument track that is routing MIDI data to an instrument plug-in is record-enabled, Pro Tools automatically suspends Delay Compensation through the main outputs of the audio track, Auxiliary Input, or Instrument track on which the instrument plug-in is inserted. This allows for latency-free monitoring of the instrument plug-in during recording.

Delay Compensation for Instrument plug‑ins works only when all MIDI and audio connections take place inside Pro Tools. While Pro Tools does not suspend Delay Compensation when you are using ReWire to connect software synthesizers and samplers in other ReWire client applications (such as Reason), Pro Tools cannot account for any latency within the ReWire client itself.

MIDI and Audio Processing Plug-Ins

Some audio processing plug-ins (such as Bruno and Reso) and many instrument plug-ins let you process audio while allowing MIDI data to control processing parameters. When you record enable a MIDI or Instrument track that is controlling an audio processing plug-in, the track the plug-in is inserted on will go into low-latency mode, effectively making the processed audio play early. The steps to prevent this and keep audio time-aligned depend on the type of track on which the plug-in resides.

To keep audio time-aligned when recording using a MIDI controlled plug-in on an audio track:

Start-Control-click (Windows) or Command-Control-click (Mac) the Track Compensation indicator for the audio track to apply Delay Compensation.

To keep audio time-aligned when recording using a MIDI controlled plug-in on an Auxiliary Input:

1 Start-Control-click (Windows) or Command-Control-click (Mac) the Track Compensation indicator for the Auxiliary Input to bypass Delay Compensation.

2 Enter the total system delay into the User Offset field.