Home Recording - Latency???

[showard44]

Sorry as I know this has been discussed a bit recently, but I need more specifics on the issue.

I am not in to spending a lot on home recording, but big problem coming into play for me is recording latency. It is making it next to impossible to record tracks in time with tracks I'm trying to play back for timing purposes.

I have a guitar preamp, line-in to a Creative Labs sound card (it is a line-in input) and am using the free Pro-Tools version.

Now what is the cheapest way to correct the latency problem? Some suggestions seem to have been made to use a mixer before the line-in on the sound card. What does this do for me? If it is simply to retrieve the recording signal from headphones or something before it gets to the computer and takes a half second to come out of the speakers than I can do that with the preamp I have. But if I plug headphones into the preamp I then obviously have a hard time hearing my other tracks that are coming out of the computer speakers to keep time.

Hope this isn't too confusing, but I need some real latency basics hear on how to get around this issue.

[popthree]

i ran into a latency problem while using my notebook to record...mainly because my soundcard just doesn't have the processing power to be great at multitracking.

the way i solved the problem was to monitor whats coming out of the mixer instead of whats coming out of the pc.
i take the signal from my pc and pipe it back thru the mixer ....then monitor that signal, and play along with it.
(instead of plugging headphones into the headphone jack, i ran a patch cable from the headphone jack to the mixer...and plug my headphones into the mixer)
sounds complicated..but it makes sense once you lay it all out.

[teledude66]

Originally Posted by popthree

i ran into a latency problem while using my notebook to record...mainly because my soundcard just doesn't have the processing power to be great at multitracking.

the way i solved the problem was to monitor whats coming out of the mixer instead of whats coming out of the pc.
i take the signal from my pc and pipe it back thru the mixer ....then monitor that signal, and play along with it.
(instead of plugging headphones into the headphone jack, i ran a patch cable from the headphone jack to the mixer...and plug my headphones into the mixer)
sounds complicated..but it makes sense once you lay it all out.

i think this is how i do it also...to clarify i use aux sends to line in on my soundcard the speaker out on the soundcard into the aux returns on my mixer and use the headphone jack on my mixer for monitoring ...i use to go from the line in/line out but then i discovered feedback loops ...lol

[showard44]

thanks guys, this makes perfect sense. I will try.

[raisindot]

Originally Posted by showard44

I am not in to spending a lot on home recording, but big problem coming into play for me is recording latency. It is making it next to impossible to record tracks in time with tracks I'm trying to play back for timing purposes.

Now what is the cheapest way to correct the latency problem?

Alas, latency is generally the product of several problems:

1. A sound card that is not state of the art and/or uses out of date drivers
2. Out of date drivers--Windows XP uses WDM drivers as default, but most newer generation sound cards use ASIO, which delivers better performance with far lower latency
3. Hardware issues: Not enough RAM, a processor that's not fast enough, and/or a hard disk that's not fast enough.

If you don't have the $$$ to upgrade your computer and/or soundcard (and, hey, who does these days?), you can try to squeeze better performance out of your PC by stripping everything possible out of memory. This means:

1. Turning off all TSRs and other memory hogs--anti virus software, network drivers, Internet connections, screen savers, Itunes helpers, software firewalls, "Pretty Windows interface" stuff, disk indexing.
2. Disable all hardware you don't need to use whilst recording--this includes network cards, CD-ROMs, modems, disk drives.
3. Defragment your hard drive.
4. Create a separate partition on your hard drive that's used exclusively for storing audio data (i.e., don't mix your audio files with your program files on the same partition).
5. If you don't have Windows XP, get it. XP has far better audio recording capabilities than earlier versions. Also, if you have Windows XP, get service pack 1 at least, which comes with better enhanced audio drivers.
6. If your Protools is running all sorts of FX in the background, disable them to maximize memory.

Jeff in Boston

[popthree]

Originally Posted by raisindot

1. Turning off all TSRs and other memory hogs--anti virus software, network drivers, Internet connections, screen savers, Itunes helpers, software firewalls, "Pretty Windows interface" stuff, disk indexing.
2. Disable all hardware you don't need to use whilst recording--this includes network cards, CD-ROMs, modems, disk drives.
3. Defragment your hard drive.
4. Create a separate partition on your hard drive that's used exclusively for storing audio data (i.e., don't mix your audio files with your program files on the same partition).
5. If you don't have Windows XP, get it. XP has far better audio recording capabilities than earlier versions. Also, if you have Windows XP, get service pack 1 at least, which comes with better enhanced audio drivers.
6. If your Protools is running all sorts of FX in the background, disable them to maximize memory.

Jeff in Boston

i dunno...sounds like alot of work for prolly not much payoff...if any....

[raisindot]

Originally Posted by popthree

i dunno...sounds like alot of work for prolly not much payoff...if any....

It took me no more than an hour to tweak my system using these methods. As a result, my latency readings went from over 200ms to less than 75ms...and thus was even before I added RAM, added a second hard drive, and got a new ASIO soundcard. When I did all THAT, latency dropped to less than 10ms. Of course, it cost me a few hundred bucks to buy that low latency...

Jeff

[popthree]

like i said....

[D in Conduct]

http://www.asio4all.com may have the driver you need to bring latency down to useable levels. If not, don't monitor your guitars input, just the track you are recording with. With the ax right under your chin, you should be able to hear even the deadest solidbody. You just won't be able to tell what it is sounding like until you play it back.

[fezz parka]

popthree nails it on post #2. :D

[raisindot]

Originally Posted by popthree

like i said....

Actually, the extra $$$ wasn't just for reducing legacy (I could live with 75ms--it's a lot better than >200, I'll tell you). The extra $$$ was required to alleviate the popping that occurred when my PC couldn't keep up with the audio data I was feeding into it and couldn't play more than 5-6 tracks of audio in Sonar without breaking up. You may not need this kind of cash if all you're doing is recording one instrument, but it you intend to multitrack audio on a PC you really do need to have a PC with the hardware that can handle it...

Jeff in Boston

[popthree]

Oh I'm 100% with you in regards to throwing hardware at PC performance issues. Make no mistake, I'm the first to throw hardware at PC issues....windows loves RAM.... And a great soundcard with a killer onboard processor would help mucho. But disabling a CDROM drive and NIC to gain snippets of performance is a little too much of an inconvenience for me. Keep in mind, the original question was basically, 'how can I correct this latency problem on the cheap' the best answer is ... get a mixer so you can monitor the signal properly.

[raisindot]

Originally Posted by popthree

Disabling a CDROM drive and NIC to gain snippets of performance is a little too much of an inconvenience for me. Keep in mind, the original question was basically, 'how can I correct this latency problem on the cheap' the best answer is ... get a mixer so you can monitor the signal properly.

Actually, I've created two separate device profiles on my "recording PC"--one that works "normally" and the other that turns off all unneeded hardware. You choose the one you want at startup, so there's no need to go through the manual tedium every time.

As for the original question, if the operative word is "cheap," you can't get any cheaper than my original software/hardware tweaking suggestions--an expenditure of $0 versus however much for a mixer. Before I did the full hardware upgrade thing I was using a cheapie Behringer mixer for pre-amping and phantom powering my condenser mike on vocals (my audio interface didn't have phantom power). I just found having that extra piece of equipment around cumbersome for me, plus I didn't like the different "character" of sound the mixer added that differed from the audio quality I was getting when I plugged my sound modules into the audio interface directly. But that's me. I'm a basement beethoven who records mainly from synth, and never records 'bands,' so consolidation and space-preservation are my primary concerns.

Strangely enough, none of the $$$ I've poured into hardware and software makes up for my total lack of ability to mix a composition so it sounds like anything other than c**p... :)

Jeff