Reference Manual

236 Working with Instruments and Effects
process an input signal and output a result. The compensation algorithm keeps Live’s tracks in
sync while minimizing delay between the player’s actions and the audible result.
Note: there are a few situations in which Live cannot compensate for plug-in delay:
•Automation (page 257) is not delay compensated. As a result, when using automation
on tracks that contain devices that cause delays, the automation may sound early.
•Tempo-synced effects and other devices that get timing information from Live’s internal
clock may sound out of sync if they are placed in a device chain after devices which cause
delay.
Device delay compensation is on by default and does not normally have to be adjusted in any
way. However, Live Sets that were created with Live 4 or earlier will open without device delay
compensation. To manually turn latency compensation on (or off), use the Delay Compensation
option in the Options menu.
When Delay Compensation is on, the Reduced Latency When Monitoring option is available in
the Options menu. This option toggles latency compensation on and off for tracks which have in-
put monitoring on. When enabled, input-monitored tracks will have the lowest possible latency,
but may be out of sync with some other tracks in your Set (such as Return tracks, which are still
delay compensated.) When disabled, all tracks will be in sync, but input-monitored tracks may
have higher latency.
Unusually high individual track delays (page 203) or reported latencies from plug-ins may
cause noticeable sluggishness in the software. If you are having latency-related difficulties
while recording and playing back instruments, you may want to try turning off device delay
compensation, however this is not normally recommended. You may also find that adjusting the
individual track delays is useful in these cases, but please note that the Track Delay controls are
unavailable when device delay compensation is deactivated.
Note that device delay compensation can, depending on the number of tracks and devices in
use, increase the CPU load.