YouAreNotCrazy User Guide

Version 1.1.0 · brucejames.studio · support@brucejames.studio

What this plugin is for

Most people play slightly ahead of or behind the click, consistently, every time. That's not a flaw, it's how you feel time. But your DAW records exactly what arrives at the interface, so a consistent 12 ms lean shows up as 12 ms of "wrong" on every take, and you end up nudging every region by hand.

YouAreNotCrazy measures that lean and gives you the one number that cancels it.

This is not about your interface's round-trip latency, which is fixed hardware your DAW already compensates for. This is about the gap between where you feel the beat and where the grid is.

Quick start

1. Insert YouAreNotCrazy on the track you record on, audio or MIDI.
2. Set Grid to the note value you're going to play (1/4 for a normal click).
3. Press play with a click running.
4. Play along. Around 8 hits in, the reading settles.
5. Read the green or coloured box at the bottom of the display.

That's it. The box tells you exactly what to do.

Reading the display

The meter

A horizontal scale from −50 ms to +50 ms.

• Left of centre (blue): you're playing early, ahead of the beat.
• Right of centre (red): you're playing late, behind the beat.
• Centre (green): you're on the grid.

The dot is your most recent hit. The bar is your running average. The dot will jump around; the bar is the number that matters.

The rows

• Latest: the single most recent hit.
• Average (N hits): the running average over the last 64 hits, how many have been collected, and how much to trust it, shown as ±X.X ms.

That ± figure is the uncertainty in the average, not the spread of your individual hits. It is what matters, because the average is the number you act on. Everyone's hits scatter; the question is only whether enough of them have been collected to pin down the middle. It shrinks as you keep playing.

The status box

After 8 hits this is your answer. What it says depends on Usage mode (below).

You get the recommendation as soon as there is enough data to form one. If it has not settled yet, the box is drawn faded with "still settling" underneath, which means the number is usable but will keep tightening. Playing more hits is the only thing that improves it.

If your average is within ±2 ms it reads "You're on the grid!" and the logo starts flashing YouAreCrazy, because at that point the timing problem isn't you.

The controls

Usage: Recording or On a Track

The plugin genuinely cannot tell these apart on its own: a live input and a recorded track both look like audio arriving against a playhead. So you tell it.

Recording (default) means you're tracking live. The box reads:

Set your DAW recording latency to +12.4 ms

Enter that as your DAW's recording offset / latency compensation. A positive number means you play late, so the DAW should pull recordings earlier.

On a Track means the plugin is sitting on something already recorded and you want to fix this take. The box reads:

Shift this track left (earlier) 12.4 ms (546 samples)

Move the region by that amount, in whichever unit your DAW prefers. A track that hits late moves left; one that hits early moves right.

Grid: 1/4, 1/8, 1/16

Set this to what you're actually playing. Every hit is measured against the nearest line of the chosen grid, so if you play 16th notes against a 1/4 grid, three out of four hits get measured against a beat they were never near.

Changing the grid clears the current measurements, because hits already collected were scored against the old subdivision.

Detect: Audio, MIDI, or Both

• Audio: finds transients in the incoming signal.
• MIDI: uses Note On events.
• Both (default): uses MIDI when it's there, audio otherwise. A MIDI note and the audio transient from the same hit will never be double-counted.

Threshold

How loud a transient has to be to count. Raise it if room noise, bleed or string squeak is triggering false hits; lower it if quiet hits are being missed.

Adjusting this does not change your measurement. The detector finds where the hit started, not where it crossed the threshold, so sensitivity and timing are independent. (In 1.0.0 they weren't, and raising the threshold shifted the reported number.)

Reset

Clears all collected hits and starts fresh. Use it after changing your setup, your seat, or your instrument.

Update available

An amber "Update available" button appears in the control strip when a newer version has been released. Click it to open brucejames.studio. It only shows up when there is genuinely something newer than what you are running, and it remembers what it last saw, so it still appears if you are offline.

Capture slots

The six buttons across the bottom are saved setups.

Your threshold and detection mode depend on where and how you're playing. A mic at your desk needs different sensitivity than the same mic from the couch, and a DI'd bass needs different settings than a snare. Capture slots let you save those combinations by name and switch in one click.

• Click an empty slot (+ Save 1): name it and it stores your current threshold and detection mode.
• Click a saved slot: loads those settings instantly.
• Right-click any slot: Load, Overwrite with current settings, Rename, or Clear.

Captures are saved per machine, not per project, so "Desk" and "From couch" are there in every session you open. They describe your physical setup, which doesn't change when you start a new song.

Stored at:

Usage mode and Grid are not part of a capture, because they're musical choices that belong to the song, so they save with the project instead.

Getting a good measurement

Play at least 8 hits, ideally 16+. The display tells you how many it has.

Play naturally. If you concentrate on hitting the click perfectly you'll measure your concentration, not your feel. Play the part like you'd actually play it.

Use one sound source. A snare and a kick in the same take have different attack shapes and will smear the result. Solo the track you're measuring.

Watch the ± figure. If it stays high after 40 or 50 hits, your timing is scattered enough that the average is still moving. That is useful information in itself. Check the threshold isn't picking up noise, and that the Grid matches what you're playing.

Occasional wild hits are fine. The average drops the extremes before computing, so one flam or one missed note won't drag the recommendation.

Frequently hit problems

"Press play to start measuring..." and nothing happens. The plugin needs a running transport and a host that reports tempo and timeline position. Make sure the DAW is actually playing, not just monitoring.

"Waiting for audio / MIDI input..." Nothing is crossing the threshold. Lower it, check the plugin is on a track that's actually receiving signal, and check Detect matches your source.

The number keeps changing. It's still averaging. Keep playing and watch the ± figure shrink.

Every hit reads as a huge offset. Your Grid almost certainly doesn't match what you're playing.

It says I'm 200 ms late. Check you're playing to the beat you think you are. Hits more than about a third of the way to the next grid line are discarded, because at that distance a very late hit and a very early one are indistinguishable.

Formats and platforms

Install locations and the Linux install.sh usage are covered in readme.txt.

Privacy

The plugin contacts brucejames.studio twice: once ever, on first use, to record an anonymous install (an irreversible hash of a machine identifier, the plugin version and your OS name), and once per editor open to fetch a small text file that carries both the optional announcement banner and the latest version number. No audio, no project data, and nothing personally identifying is ever transmitted. Both requests time out after 3 seconds and fail silently.

YouAreNotCrazy is free. If it saved you an afternoon of nudging regions, tell someone about it.