"speak to us of latency"

PeterWright wrote on 11/23/2004, 12:18 AM

I know latency is something being later than something else, but there are different forms of this, and I sometimes wonder which kind is being referred to .

e.g. after recording, a vocal event may need moving a tad to the left to be back in synch with the backing track

or .. Whilst recording, a singer's voice in input monitor comes back through the headphones a tad after she made the noise.

SO, I'd love to hear from anyone who can describe the forms of latency they have experienced, what may be causing it - software setting? / sound card or system/ ram limitations etc. - and consequently, what the remedies are.

Thanks

Comments

drbam wrote on 11/23/2004, 6:29 AM

The soundcard and related software, the software app itself, driver settings, buffers and your DAW system all can factor into latency. IMO, the biggest latency problem is with overdubbing and this can be avoided completely by using a outboard mixer for monitoring.

drbam

vanblah wrote on 11/23/2004, 7:06 AM

***********e.g. after recording, a vocal event may need moving a tad to the left to be back in synch with the backing track***********

This is a form of latency ... but not what is being addressed when people talk about sound card latency. This is usually performer error and can be adjusted rather easily.

***********or .. Whilst recording, a singer's voice in input monitor comes back through the headphones a tad after she made the noise.***********

Soundcard latency refers to how long after a realtime event occurs the recorded/processed signal comes through the speakers. It is usually measured in milliseconds. It can be a result of many things as drbam pointed out. You'll need to tweak your soundcard settings (if possible) to get the lowest latency with the best performance.