latency issue

G

geoff956

New member
I had a latency problem a while back when overdubbing guitar tracks, and a guy named 'Manning' on this forum suggested that if I connected the output of my computer to an old cassette deck and monitored via it's headphone socket it may well solve it. I didn't see how this could make any difference, as it's the same output. (Mind you I am a newbie)
However, on trying it out it actually works!!
Now everyone is saying to me it can't work, and if it does how???
Can anyone tell me WHY it works so I can shut them all up!!
(Using Cubasis VST 5 by the way.)

Thanks in advance.
 
I have given this some thought and I am stumped.

All I can think of is that it must be magic, so don’t question it too much just be happy its working as there can be no scientific explanation for these results :eek:
:confused:
:D
 
Be semi scientific about it will ya? Take one of those outs and hook it straight to your....what were you doing to monitor before? And take the other and keep it setup as it is now. Do you hear both outputs at the same time? Yes, I think you will.

I think you may have misunderstood the advice given you and now you are misinterpreting what is happening that "fixed" the problem. Hooking your computer's outputs to a different device is not going to speed up the signal down the wire. Chances are you changed more than one thing and now you think it's the tape deck that fixed it.

Whacky my friend...whacky.
 
Thanks very much for replying.
In the first place I was laying down midi drum/bass tracks and then overdubbing guitar plugged into the computer line in and monitoring everything via the main output speakers. It sounded fine when I recorded it but when I played it back the guitar track drifted.
I have got a shit soundcard but can't afford a decent one just yet, so that brought my audio recording to a stop. When 'Manning' gave me that advice (which I don't think I got wrong) the problem was solved.
I can't think of anything else I did differently.
I will however try recording the old way again to see if the latency re-appears.
Even if I have got it wrong somewhere, how does the cassette deck fit into the picture?????(He seemed to know what he was talking about)
Also, given my shit soundcard, how come I get no noticeable latency now????
 
Seems to me the difference is when you monitored the old way, you used the soundcard's speaker output, and now you monitor using the card's line out??
Maybe nasty soundcards have extra latency when outputting to the speaker that's not present when outputting via line out...just a theory
 
Cheap soundcards just have one line out, typically. Even if there were two, one line level and one amplfied to drive speakers, there would be no detectable latency between them.

You can monitor from the line in (while the signal's still not been digitized and processed by the PC), in which case you will be playing right with what's already recorded. This is so-called input monitoring.

If you are monitoring the output after it's been processed, though, then what you're playing, you are actually hearing a smidge after it's actually been recorded. (How much of a smidge depends on how bad the latency of the card is.) So when you play it back, if the latency is bad enough, you'll hear it, it'll sound like your'e ahead of the backing tracks a bit...

I suspect you have somehow started monitoring the line in along with the output of the soundcard, perhaps without realizing you have done this.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top