The usage of several VST plugins is causing mic delay

A

AppleDr

New Member
Hello,
I've been using vst plugins for a while now but recently decided to redo my audio setup and changed and added alot of VST plugins, these include a Deeser, Limiter, Exciter, EQ, Noise gate and noise suppression, but I have noticed while using these plugins that they cause a noticeable amount of delay when all used as a whole. I was wondering if there is any way to figure out how to fix this delay or how to mitigate the amount of it. I have tried toying around in the settings but I'm quite inexperienced with audio work and wanted to ask for some advice on how to fix this.
 
AppleDr said:
Hello,
I've been using vst plugins for a while now but recently decided to redo my audio setup and changed and added alot of VST plugins, these include a Deeser, Limiter, Exciter, EQ, Noise gate and noise suppression, but I have noticed while using these plugins that they cause a noticeable amount of delay when all used as a whole. I was wondering if there is any way to figure out how to fix this delay or how to mitigate the amount of it. I have tried toying around in the settings but I'm quite inexperienced with audio work and wanted to ask for some advice on how to fix this.
Click to expand...
The easy way (probably only) is using hardware not software. The more plugins you add to the chain, as each one process the signal and then releases it, the more delay you get.
Less is better, less is good. Almost all, if not all, of this VST plugins are made thinking on recording, not live streaming.
 
PaiSand said:
The easy way (probably only) is using hardware not software. The more plugins you add to the chain, as each one process the signal and then releases it, the more delay you get.
Less is better, less is good. Almost all, if not all, of this VST plugins are made thinking on recording, not live streaming.
Click to expand...
Thank you for your response this helps put a perspective on what I should do, ill try masking the delay by delaying the camera aswell. I've got a fix in mind and will look into hardware such as an XLR Interface as my mic is a USB / XLR hybrid (MV7)
Sincerely Thank you for your help!
 
The amount of delay can be calculated and compensated for with the offsets in the "Advanced Audio Properties" menu.
To calculate the amount of delay, you need to know how much delay is added, usually in samples. Reaper ( the Digital Audio Workstation - DAW for short) can tell you how much latency in samples you get for that entire plugin chain.

Example:
I personally run a couple of Fabfilter Compressors and Limiters on my own audio.
The compressor adds about 1 sample of delay, basically no latency.
The limiter adds about 595 samples of latency in samples.
These numbers can be found in Reaper's "Performance Meter" (Under the "View" menu).
Reaper Sample latency.PNG

To calculate, you take the sample latency of the plugins (in my case 596 samples) and devide that by your PC's audio sample rate shown as 48.000 Hz here
Audio Samplerate.PNG
and then multiply that result by 1000 to get the result in milliseconds.
Calc.PNG

The result here shows a latency of 12,4 milliseconds.

Inside of OBS you make a negative offset of -12 or -13 milliseconds in the "Advanced Audio Properties" windows for the audio source you are working on. You can't use decimals here, unfortunately.
OBS.PNG

Ignore that I use 17 milliseconds here, this is on purpose for my use case.


TL;DR
Find the value of latency in samples.
Devide this number by your PC's samplerate.
Multiply the result from the previous calculation by 1000.
Set a negative offset inside of OBS, using the result.


I hope this was helpfull.
 
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