new laptop windows 8.1 Audacity latency - Hopeless?

C

cuttingtracks

New member
HI,

Just bought a new Toshiba laptop running Windows 8.1 Fired up Audacity to test internal mic & after recording acoustic guitar and overdubbing bass, noticed the bass track was slightly off. Thought it was my playing but no, as the whole internet knows, there's a latency problem at work; split second delay between the sound I make and when it shows up visually on Audacity.

Just now I was looking in Control Panal under the "SOUND ------ Recording" tab, to see the name of my internal mic (Realtek High Definition Audio) and the sound meter there SEEMS to how no latency - it moves as soon as I test it.

Might this only be a problem in Audacity?

I've looked up youtube vids and articles, tried adjusting latency in Audacity which completely messes things up. Super-stressed - I need to multi-track without this hassle or return laptop pronto!

Cheers.
 
I am confused. You use the term "multitrack" but, AFAICT you are using the built in soundcard (and MIC FCS!)?

Latency is a function of mostly the interface (OBS is shit for it) and the drivers, ASIO being the bizz for PC.

I have avoided well, not needed, a W8 computer but all the reports I have read have bemoaned the operational aspects. It seems just as good for audio as W7, maybe even a little better. There could be programs and settings in that PC that mitigate against low latency but they will be fixable but frankly unless you ARE using a proper, external interface you will IMHO continue to have problems.

Dave.
 
cuttingtracks said:
I need to multi-track without this hassle or return laptop pronto!
Click to expand...

Audacity and onboard audio are not made for multitrack/overdubbing. A proper mic and audio interface would probably help, but I think switching software (I'll suggest Reaper) will solve your record offset problem.

Note that record offset/record latency is different from input monitoring latency and requires a different solution.
 
Yep, you need a decent audio interface. Read the sticky threads at the top of this section of the forum regarding computer recording. The latency you are hearing is due to your internal soundcard - this is the device that is doing the analog to digital (and digital to analog) conversions. It's made with about $0.69 worth of components and is made for playing back computer beeps and boops and internet audio through that tiny flat speaker built into the plastic casing.
When I first started looking at computer recording, the same thing happened to me - massive latency from the onboard card - so I bought a stand-alone recorder instead. Then I came to this place and started reading, wish I had read first!
 
Just to clarify, if you're asking if your recording is hopeless, the answer is no. Select the track that's off, turn off whatever snap to grid functions are in Audacity and simply slide the track into sync.
AFA getting the best latency and usability out of your PC, try THIS ARTICLE.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
It's record latency, not monitoring latency. It's almost certainly caused by the software, Audacity, which is not designed for multitrack recording.
Click to expand...

I had the same issue with an early Cakewalk version I was using, though. I'd record track 1, listen back to track 1 while recording track 2 and they would not be lined up. there were probably settings to adjust this automatically, but I gave up.
 
Yeah, it was easy in Cakewalk, there was a setting to drop the recorded music back by so many ms.
Still, it's frustrating. I get that at times, but not all the time. Def software. I just use the method I described above. Select the offending clips and drag them into submission :eek:
 
mjbphotos said:
I had the same issue with an early Cakewalk version I was using, though. I'd record track 1, listen back to track 1 while recording track 2 and they would not be lined up. there were probably settings to adjust this automatically, but I gave up.
Click to expand...

I don't think Audacity has an option to compensate for that because it's not really intended to be a multitrack recorder. It's an editor.
 
For what it's worth, I'm running a TASCAM US-1800 with REAPER into Windows 8.1 and it runs perfectly.
 
Hey everybody - thanks for the replies. Lots of good stuff for me to check out!

In the meantime, I ditched Audacity, used multitrackstudio.com demo & there was no delay! (What I liked about Audacity is that as soon as you click RECOCRD, a new track automatically pops up - super simple. Ah well).
 
cuttingtracks said:
Hey everybody - thanks for the replies. Lots of good stuff for me to check out!

In the meantime, I ditched Audacity, used multitrackstudio.com demo & there was no delay! (What I liked about Audacity is that as soon as you click RECOCRD, a new track automatically pops up - super simple. Ah well).
Click to expand...

Well now! When you stop a recording and start again in Samplitude it automatically starts "take 2, take3, takeXXX"! AND labels them accordingly so there!

Heh! No doubt other DAW softwares have their own little ways?

Dave.
 
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