Audiobus: Use your music apps together.

What is Audiobus? — Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.

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Audiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.

The apps by Unfiltered Audio has been released

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Comments

  • CarnbotCarnbot

    Yeah I've also noticed big battery drain which could be related to these plugins as it seems higher than usual.

  • Michael_R_GrantMichael_R_Grant

    I can certainly confirm the latency problem in Drambo, it seems pretty big. Maybe Drambo issues plus the UA-specific issues = ouch!

  • GrandbearGrandbear

    @Michael_R_Grant said:
    I can certainly confirm the latency problem in Drambo, it seems pretty big. Maybe Drambo issues plus the UA-specific issues = ouch!

    Note that the Drambo issue (which is not a bug, just a missing feature) is specific to latency compensation, not extra latency

  • amusesmileamusesmile

    @craftycurate said:

    @SLPGroundSoundMusic said:

    @craftycurate said:
    I love Silo - this is such a powerful tool for a wide range of effects and it’s a lot of fun to explore and mess around with it and come up with a wide range of different sounds,

    However, it seems to be a real battery guzzler. In about an hour of use in AUM, I realised my battery had dropped from 100% to 22% and this is very unusual even with sets with a whole bunch of apps.

    In my experience of this happening with other apps, this seems to be more to do with the display of the GUI e.g. refresh rates, or whether the entire GUI is redrawn at the screen refresh rate or whether it’s just the region.

    I tend to find that high CPU demand doesn’t tend to drain battery as much as it causes CPU spikes. Apart from one time when CPU went up to 85% in AUM (with everything cranked up), it’s not adding more than about 20-30% to AUM processing (on an iPad Pro 2017), I don’t think it’s a CPU thing, but more likely to be to do with the GUI.

    I will test and compare battery drain rates with the GUI open vs GUI closed and see if that’s what it is.

    Is anyone else finding battery draining more quickly than usual with any of these apps?

    same here, i actually noticed it more with needlepoint, i guess because it was the app that i was spending more time with checking out the presets and playing around with the knobs, when i started using it my battery was around 70% and around 25 minutes later my battery was already at 20%

    @trickyflemming Loving these plugins ... esp Silo so far ... definitely on the purchase list.

    Is the battery drain something that could be looked into? In my experience with similar scenarios it seems to be GUI rather than audio processing related in my experience, but you know your code :)

    My battery drained from 100% to about 40% in 40 minutes which is very unusual for my setup, even with very plugin heavy setups, if my CPU load is too high I will get CPU spikes/audio dropouts but not battery drain at this rate.

    The AUM set in question only had 3 plugins: Silo, Pure Piano and SB Drum Computer, the latter two of which never cause battery drain issues for me.

    Thanks :)

    Hey everyone- thanks so much for the feedback and support. It's getting into the Holiday here so we'll be a bit unresponsive until next week but we're definitely keeping track of the comments and issues that have been pointed out. Latency is the highest priority and we'll see what's going on and fix whatever we can on that side. For the battery drain I'm sure there's room for improvement- something as simple as lowering the visualizer update frame rate on iOS for instance, sounds like it might do quite a bit if it really is gui related (likely). If anyone is testing Needlepoint/Bass-Mint again and wants to do an experiment of disabling the visualizer in the settings menu to see if that makes a big difference, please do let me know. Cheers!

  • craftycuratecraftycurate

    @amusesmile said:

    @craftycurate said:

    @SLPGroundSoundMusic said:

    @craftycurate said:
    I love Silo - this is such a powerful tool for a wide range of effects and it’s a lot of fun to explore and mess around with it and come up with a wide range of different sounds,

    However, it seems to be a real battery guzzler. In about an hour of use in AUM, I realised my battery had dropped from 100% to 22% and this is very unusual even with sets with a whole bunch of apps.

    In my experience of this happening with other apps, this seems to be more to do with the display of the GUI e.g. refresh rates, or whether the entire GUI is redrawn at the screen refresh rate or whether it’s just the region.

    I tend to find that high CPU demand doesn’t tend to drain battery as much as it causes CPU spikes. Apart from one time when CPU went up to 85% in AUM (with everything cranked up), it’s not adding more than about 20-30% to AUM processing (on an iPad Pro 2017), I don’t think it’s a CPU thing, but more likely to be to do with the GUI.

    I will test and compare battery drain rates with the GUI open vs GUI closed and see if that’s what it is.

    Is anyone else finding battery draining more quickly than usual with any of these apps?

    same here, i actually noticed it more with needlepoint, i guess because it was the app that i was spending more time with checking out the presets and playing around with the knobs, when i started using it my battery was around 70% and around 25 minutes later my battery was already at 20%

    @trickyflemming Loving these plugins ... esp Silo so far ... definitely on the purchase list.

    Is the battery drain something that could be looked into? In my experience with similar scenarios it seems to be GUI rather than audio processing related in my experience, but you know your code :)

    My battery drained from 100% to about 40% in 40 minutes which is very unusual for my setup, even with very plugin heavy setups, if my CPU load is too high I will get CPU spikes/audio dropouts but not battery drain at this rate.

    The AUM set in question only had 3 plugins: Silo, Pure Piano and SB Drum Computer, the latter two of which never cause battery drain issues for me.

    Thanks :)

    Hey everyone- thanks so much for the feedback and support. It's getting into the Holiday here so we'll be a bit unresponsive until next week but we're definitely keeping track of the comments and issues that have been pointed out. Latency is the highest priority and we'll see what's going on and fix whatever we can on that side. For the battery drain I'm sure there's room for improvement- something as simple as lowering the visualizer update frame rate on iOS for instance, sounds like it might do quite a bit if it really is gui related (likely). If anyone is testing Needlepoint/Bass-Mint again and wants to do an experiment of disabling the visualizer in the settings menu to see if that makes a big difference, please do let me know. Cheers!

    Thanks for that ... the battery drain also happens in Silo, so will try with Visualiser off.

  • amusesmileamusesmile

    @craftycurate said:

    @amusesmile said:

    @craftycurate said:

    @SLPGroundSoundMusic said:

    @craftycurate said:
    I love Silo - this is such a powerful tool for a wide range of effects and it’s a lot of fun to explore and mess around with it and come up with a wide range of different sounds,

    However, it seems to be a real battery guzzler. In about an hour of use in AUM, I realised my battery had dropped from 100% to 22% and this is very unusual even with sets with a whole bunch of apps.

    In my experience of this happening with other apps, this seems to be more to do with the display of the GUI e.g. refresh rates, or whether the entire GUI is redrawn at the screen refresh rate or whether it’s just the region.

    I tend to find that high CPU demand doesn’t tend to drain battery as much as it causes CPU spikes. Apart from one time when CPU went up to 85% in AUM (with everything cranked up), it’s not adding more than about 20-30% to AUM processing (on an iPad Pro 2017), I don’t think it’s a CPU thing, but more likely to be to do with the GUI.

    I will test and compare battery drain rates with the GUI open vs GUI closed and see if that’s what it is.

    Is anyone else finding battery draining more quickly than usual with any of these apps?

    same here, i actually noticed it more with needlepoint, i guess because it was the app that i was spending more time with checking out the presets and playing around with the knobs, when i started using it my battery was around 70% and around 25 minutes later my battery was already at 20%

    @trickyflemming Loving these plugins ... esp Silo so far ... definitely on the purchase list.

    Is the battery drain something that could be looked into? In my experience with similar scenarios it seems to be GUI rather than audio processing related in my experience, but you know your code :)

    My battery drained from 100% to about 40% in 40 minutes which is very unusual for my setup, even with very plugin heavy setups, if my CPU load is too high I will get CPU spikes/audio dropouts but not battery drain at this rate.

    The AUM set in question only had 3 plugins: Silo, Pure Piano and SB Drum Computer, the latter two of which never cause battery drain issues for me.

    Thanks :)

    Hey everyone- thanks so much for the feedback and support. It's getting into the Holiday here so we'll be a bit unresponsive until next week but we're definitely keeping track of the comments and issues that have been pointed out. Latency is the highest priority and we'll see what's going on and fix whatever we can on that side. For the battery drain I'm sure there's room for improvement- something as simple as lowering the visualizer update frame rate on iOS for instance, sounds like it might do quite a bit if it really is gui related (likely). If anyone is testing Needlepoint/Bass-Mint again and wants to do an experiment of disabling the visualizer in the settings menu to see if that makes a big difference, please do let me know. Cheers!

    Thanks for that ... the battery drain also happens in Silo, so will try with Visualiser off.

    Right- Silo is on my radar 100%, it's just that even with the visualizer off it has the meters updating on the side so it won't be as much of an obvious test, though it should substantially better since the spatializer/grain drawing is relatively heavy in comparison.

  • craftycuratecraftycurate

    @amusesmile said:

    @craftycurate said:

    @amusesmile said:

    @craftycurate said:

    @SLPGroundSoundMusic said:

    @craftycurate said:
    I love Silo - this is such a powerful tool for a wide range of effects and it’s a lot of fun to explore and mess around with it and come up with a wide range of different sounds,

    However, it seems to be a real battery guzzler. In about an hour of use in AUM, I realised my battery had dropped from 100% to 22% and this is very unusual even with sets with a whole bunch of apps.

    In my experience of this happening with other apps, this seems to be more to do with the display of the GUI e.g. refresh rates, or whether the entire GUI is redrawn at the screen refresh rate or whether it’s just the region.

    I tend to find that high CPU demand doesn’t tend to drain battery as much as it causes CPU spikes. Apart from one time when CPU went up to 85% in AUM (with everything cranked up), it’s not adding more than about 20-30% to AUM processing (on an iPad Pro 2017), I don’t think it’s a CPU thing, but more likely to be to do with the GUI.

    I will test and compare battery drain rates with the GUI open vs GUI closed and see if that’s what it is.

    Is anyone else finding battery draining more quickly than usual with any of these apps?

    same here, i actually noticed it more with needlepoint, i guess because it was the app that i was spending more time with checking out the presets and playing around with the knobs, when i started using it my battery was around 70% and around 25 minutes later my battery was already at 20%

    @trickyflemming Loving these plugins ... esp Silo so far ... definitely on the purchase list.

    Is the battery drain something that could be looked into? In my experience with similar scenarios it seems to be GUI rather than audio processing related in my experience, but you know your code :)

    My battery drained from 100% to about 40% in 40 minutes which is very unusual for my setup, even with very plugin heavy setups, if my CPU load is too high I will get CPU spikes/audio dropouts but not battery drain at this rate.

    The AUM set in question only had 3 plugins: Silo, Pure Piano and SB Drum Computer, the latter two of which never cause battery drain issues for me.

    Thanks :)

    Hey everyone- thanks so much for the feedback and support. It's getting into the Holiday here so we'll be a bit unresponsive until next week but we're definitely keeping track of the comments and issues that have been pointed out. Latency is the highest priority and we'll see what's going on and fix whatever we can on that side. For the battery drain I'm sure there's room for improvement- something as simple as lowering the visualizer update frame rate on iOS for instance, sounds like it might do quite a bit if it really is gui related (likely). If anyone is testing Needlepoint/Bass-Mint again and wants to do an experiment of disabling the visualizer in the settings menu to see if that makes a big difference, please do let me know. Cheers!

    Thanks for that ... the battery drain also happens in Silo, so will try with Visualiser off.

    Right- Silo is on my radar 100%, it's just that even with the visualizer off it has the meters updating on the side so it won't be as much of an obvious test, though it should substantially better since the spatializer/grain drawing is relatively heavy in comparison.

    No worries - thanks for the update! I wonder if any GUI update, no matter how small, requires a whole screen redrawing, or if region redrawing is possible ... I guess this would make a significant difference to the cost of redrawing.

  • JRSIVJRSIV

    Over the years quite a few of the desktop plugin’s that have made their way to iOS have had problems. UA has a solid reputation and will take care of any issues. I’m getting the latency issues inside Cubasis 3 using Tails; have a snare drum with a reverb on it and it’s got latency issues for sure. I’m patient and still glad I got in at the introductory pricing for sure…

  • MFBTMFBT

    Any word on when the bundle is dropping? I better spend my 20 before I lose my nerve and buy 6 copies of jam with Jordan.

  • MFBTMFBT

    @MFBT said:
    Any word on when the bundle is dropping? I better spend my 20 before I lose my nerve and buy 6 copies of jam with Jordan (I'm buying it for my kid)

  • oat_phippsoat_phipps
    edited November 2022

    Also not pointed out, the Tails ducking sensitivity/time and amounts are beasts that must be tamed (in a good way…it really unlocks the inventiveness beyond the beauty of the tails themselves). Sometimes the “impression” of latency can occur with certain dial-ins and presets (to be clear, I’ve experienced some latency issues and I do agree that there is room for improvement. Just saying it’s a very touchy and imo amazing thing when it comes to finding cool ideas. Sometimes that slow response might just be happening because of “sloppy” use).

  • ExAsperis99ExAsperis99

    You know, that’s what I thought too. But the latency persists even when the node is deactivated. Are you not seeing latency when playing a live input, like a guitar?

  • espiegel123espiegel123

    @ExAsperis99 said:
    You know, that’s what I thought too. But the latency persists even when the node is deactivated. Are you not seeing latency when playing a live input, like a guitar?

    Check to see if latency compensation is on or off..and turn it off.

    If it is on, this may be due to latency compensation...which delays all signals to match the plugin with the most latency. By design, the latency compensation amount will stay the same i imagine when bypassing so that unbypassing doesn't cause a latency jump on all tracks.

  • ExAsperis99ExAsperis99
    edited November 2022

    wait – I need to know: are people playing a guitar through Tails and NOT experiencing latency? I’ve tried all the varying adjustments in buffer and latency compensation, and none of it makes a difference. I feel like I’m on ketamine. The sound bears only the slightest relation to what my hands are doing.

    I would love for this to be user error! Tel me what patches have the least latency for you @oat_phipps and I’ll dive right in.

  • espiegel123espiegel123

    @ExAsperis99 said:
    wait – I need to know: are people playing a guitar through Tails and NOT experiencing latency? I’ve tried all the varying adjustments in buffer and latency compensation, and none of it makes a difference. I feel like I’m on ketamine. The sound bears only the slightest relation to what my hands are doing.

    I would love for this to be user error! Tel me what patches have the least latency for you @oat_phipps and I’ll dive right in.

    Maybe there is some some delay compensation that one can't turn off?

    @ExAsperis99 : i just tried with my guitar. i am experiencing the same thing. Even with latency compensation off, Tails being on any track or bus is resulting in the dry signal being noticeably latent even if the the dry signal doesn't pass through Tails and Tails is bypassed.

    I notice that the latency compensation toggle says hardware. So maybe the software latency compensation is undefeatable?

    @j_liljedahl ?

  • GrandbearGrandbear
    edited November 2022

    @espiegel123 @ExAsperis99 latency compensation can't be disabled, a less-than-ideal workaround is to add a "Time Offset" node to the guitar channel, with the same amount reported by "Latency Compensation", but negative. Obviously this wouldn't address the latency inherent to Tails itself, so it won't work if you're processing the guitar signal with it.

    Edit:

    For completeness, here's a screenshot: VTines is being processed by Tails (with 100 ms latency) in channel 2, but the guitar can be played without additional latency through channel 1. This is effectively defeating latency compensation for channel 1.

  • GrandbearGrandbear
    edited November 2022

    @trickyflemming @amusesmile here are some rough measurements I took with Instruments, using VTines being processed by one plugin at a time, with the default preset. I don't know if this supports the theory of the UI being the culprit or not. I tested a few others (Crystalline, some by FAC, some by Bram Bos, Pro-Q 3) and all had an increase in CPU usage with UI open, but only Crystalline's was as dramatic as these. Thanks in advance for taking a look when you get back!

                         UI closed   UI open   UI open, no visualizer
Bass Mint                 2.7%       25%
lo-fi-af                  7.2%       42%
Tails                     6.1%       83%
Silo                      2.3%       36%                      32%
Needlepoint (beta)        4.4%       51%                      32%
  • espiegel123espiegel123

    @Grandbear said:
    @espiegel123 @ExAsperis99 latency compensation can't be disabled, a less-than-ideal workaround is to add a "Time Offset" node to the guitar channel, with the same amount reported by "Latency Compensation", but negative. Obviously this wouldn't address the latency inherent to Tails itself, so it won't work if you're processing the guitar signal with it.

    Edit:

    For completeness, here's a screenshot: VTines is being processed by Tails (with 100 ms latency) in channel 2, but the guitar can be played without additional latency through channel 1. This is effectively defeating latency compensation for channel 1.

    Thanks!

    Note that if you have a bus send on the guitar input, put the Time Offset node after the send

  • realdaweirealdawei

    do UA plugs have similar issues on desktop?

  • ZerozerozeroZerozerozero

    @Zerozerozero said:

    @ExAsperis99 said:

    @realdawei said:

    @Samu said:

    @realdawei said:
    Experiencing high latency on all the plugins on my first test in GB iPadOS…however I’m on iOS 16 public beta…

    Are there any other GB users trying these fx?

    That is NOT the fault of the plug-ins but rather a good sign that hosts need to start catching up implementing PDC(plug-in delay compensation).

    We’ve got all these amazing instruments and effects but the DAWs lag behind in features like it’s late 90s…

    I’ve been under the impression that GB iOS already has PDC for years? . This doesn’t seem PDC related, feels like a genuine bug - the delay is significant

    A quick run through with Tails on a guitar in AUM was nearly unusable. So much latency that I’m sure it has to be user error; no way would a beta tester not have flagged this. I’ll reinvestigate when I have more time.

    Fairly sure it was flagged on the beta threads and also reported on other forums (gearspace, kvr etc)

    It is reported on desktop forums (see above).
    Think quite a few people on the beta threads said they had them on desktop so maybe they can confirm?

  • trickyflemmingtrickyflemming

    Hey! As Josh mentioned earlier we're a bit tied up until Monday, but I thought I'd give a roadmap for fixing these bugs so that you don't feel like we're peacing out. On Tuesday or Wednesday (pending Apple approval after getting together a bugfix), we will test out some builds on the beta branch.
    1) For starters, we will definitely put in a frame rate limiter. The interfaces are causing particularly excessive drain on devices with 120 FPS rendering.
    2) We had disabled hardware rendering on Windows and Mac due to incompatibilities with older Windows machines and incoming OpenGL deprecation on macOS. However, we will test turning the hardware rendering back on since the iOS devices are far more homogeneous as far as GPUs go. This will be an enormous improvement for CPU use and battery drain. In particular, the Tails interface should feel significantly more fluid.
    3) Tails currently has latency fixed at 100 ms for its tonal analyzer. At some point (maybe the week after next, maybe sooner depending on how internal testing goes), we will push a build with toggle for an optional 10ms low latency mode. This will affect the analyzer, but it would be vastly preferable for people attempting to play a live instrument with Tails.
    One additional thought: Would people want an optional zero-latency mode that completely bypasses the analysis stage and gives you a reverb-only mode?

    Regarding latency on other plugins: lo-fi-af uses a Fourier transform for its spectral section, which gives unavoidable latency. The Analog section also has a lookahead maximizer (PRESS... the same latency occurs on Needlepoint and Silo's compressors). We could look into low latency options for the compressors, but for lo-fi-af the latency will be unavoidable for the Spectral section. While we could, say, report zero latency when the spectral section is disabled, it ends up with a lot of other undesirable side effects in DAWs when enabled/disabled. In particular, in some DAWs (notably Cubase... probably Cubasis if I had to guess), you can get stuck in an infinite feedback loop if you automate the mode enabled toggle. When latency changes, Cubase moves the transport's playhead, which will then venture back in time to when the toggle was in a different state.

    @MFBT said:
    Any word on when the bundle is dropping? I better spend my 20 before I lose my nerve and buy 6 copies of jam with Jordan.

    It was finally marked as "In Review" yesterday. I don't anticipate it getting cleared today because of the holiday, so hopefully they'll approve it tomorrow!

  • skiphuntskiphunt
    edited November 2022

    I’ve already bought Lo-Fi-AF and Silo (among my favorite 5 purchases this year) :) - what will be in the bundle and how much will it cost?

  • bleepbleep

    That's covered on page 2 of this thread. $20 for all apps, meaning 1 for free. I'm not sure if bundle discounting will apply if you already have bought some, I guess that's up to Apple's mysterious ways of bundle pricing.

    Sounds good regarding incoming fixes. If you ask then ABF surely say yes please to a zero latency option :smile:

  • bleepbleep
    edited November 2022

    Btw, I noticed that Venus Theory has a nice walk-through of lo-fi-af:

    Edit: Silo as well:

  • espiegel123espiegel123

    @bleep said:
    That's covered on page 2 of this thread. $20 for all apps, meaning 1 for free. I'm not sure if bundle discounting will apply if you already have bought some, I guess that's up to Apple's mysterious ways of bundle pricing.

    Sounds good regarding incoming fixes. If you ask then ABF surely say yes please to a zero latency option :smile:

    Apple’s bundle pricing is pretty straightforward. Whatever you have actually paid for bundle components is subtracted from the cost of the bundle if you already own some.

    Sometimes, the App Store doesn’t display the right calculated price at first which is usually fixed by scrolling to the bottom and back to the top and refreshing the page.

  • craftycuratecraftycurate
    edited November 2022

    @trickyflemming said:
    Hey! As Josh mentioned earlier we're a bit tied up until Monday, but I thought I'd give a roadmap for fixing these bugs so that you don't feel like we're peacing out. On Tuesday or Wednesday (pending Apple approval after getting together a bugfix), we will test out some builds on the beta branch.
    1) For starters, we will definitely put in a frame rate limiter. The interfaces are causing particularly excessive drain on devices with 120 FPS rendering.
    2) We had disabled hardware rendering on Windows and Mac due to incompatibilities with older Windows machines and incoming OpenGL deprecation on macOS. However, we will test turning the hardware rendering back on since the iOS devices are far more homogeneous as far as GPUs go. This will be an enormous improvement for CPU use and battery drain. In particular, the Tails interface should feel significantly more fluid.
    …

    Thanks for such a comprehensive response, and for great responsiveness to user feedback! Looking forward to the updates.

    Yes please for frame rate limiter (is it possible to offer a Setting e.g. 15/30/60 fps?

    Yes please for zero latency mode for Tails I.e. reverb only.

    If beta testing would help get them out the gate, happy to jump on that esp for battery drain/frame rate.

    If your weekend availability is due to Thanksgiving, Happy Thanksgiving!

  • anicktanickt

    @craftycurate said:

    @trickyflemming said:
    Hey! As Josh mentioned earlier we're a bit tied up until Monday, but I thought I'd give a roadmap for fixing these bugs so that you don't feel like we're peacing out. On Tuesday or Wednesday (pending Apple approval after getting together a bugfix), we will test out some builds on the beta branch.
    1) For starters, we will definitely put in a frame rate limiter. The interfaces are causing particularly excessive drain on devices with 120 FPS rendering.
    2) We had disabled hardware rendering on Windows and Mac due to incompatibilities with older Windows machines and incoming OpenGL deprecation on macOS. However, we will test turning the hardware rendering back on since the iOS devices are far more homogeneous as far as GPUs go. This will be an enormous improvement for CPU use and battery drain. In particular, the Tails interface should feel significantly more fluid.
    …

    Thanks for such a comprehensive response, and for great responsiveness to user feedback! Looking forward to the updates.

    Yes please for frame rate limiter (is it possible to offer a Setting e.g. 15/30/60 fps?

    Yes please for zero latency mode for Tails I.e. reverb only.

    If beta testing would help get them out the gate, happy to jump on that esp for battery drain/frame rate.

    If your weekend availability is due to Thanksgiving, Happy Thanksgiving!

    Another top-of-the-line dev dares to take on the AB Forum Army! @trickyflemming 😎👍🏼

  • Montreal_MusicMontreal_Music

    The problem of latency is only for the reverb or for Silo?

  • GavinskiGavinski

    @Montreal_Music said:
    The problem of latency is only for the reverb or for Silo?

    Tricky discussed it all in detail above - see his long post on the matter

  • iamspooniamspoon
    edited November 2022


    I’ve been experimentIng and found this pretty confusing… this setup initially fails to null but if you move the phase and plugins up/down on the list then it nulls to silence (as should be expected with 100% dry)

    It appears to be an issue with PDC upon initialising… this is probably why choosing a new latency buffer or even resetting it solves the latency compensation issues.

    I hope that is helpful!?!

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