Two audio card questions (VST latency and recording quality)

Hello again! Today I've been in a local musical store, and there I've met, seemingly, a very smart guy who told me about the importance of connecting microphones, even dynamic, strictly into mic inputs and never into line in.
So, after all, I've ordered Behringer U-Phoria UMC404, which has 4 microphone inputs. It will arrive the next week, so when I'll set it up I will return to tell you how things are. Thanks!
 
ivanlychkov said:
Hello again! Today I've been in a local musical store, and there I've met, seemingly, a very smart guy who told me about the importance of connecting microphones, even dynamic, strictly into mic inputs and never into line in.
So, after all, I've ordered Behringer U-Phoria UMC404, which has 4 microphone inputs. It will arrive the next week, so when I'll set it up I will return to tell you how things are. Thanks!
Click to expand...

Excellent! There is a guy at thefretboard,com who has one and said it works very well. No bells or DSP whistles, just a competent AI.

Re mics and line inputs? "Never" is a rarely used word in audio! Mics handling very high sound levels, inside a kick say, are often patched into a balanced line input. And, academic now but you can get 1:10 transformers that enable mics to drive line ins. Quality suffers unless the traffs are very expensive but it can get you out of a repro hole sometimes!

Dave.
 
Hello again folks!
I've set up my new audio interface (Behringer UMC404, as I said). Now everything is a little better, but still there is still a little latency left. VST synthesizers are nearly playable. I've noticed that it is, actually, the delay between the pressing of a key and the reaction of a plugin. I've tried to upgrade the MIDI keyboard's driver, but it didn't help, so I continue to investigate.
As a backup scheme, please tell me, can I, using VSTHost, hear my playing processed by standard MIDI output (I mean, standard MIDI sounds), and simultaneosly record the output of my playing processed by the VST chain?
Thank you!
Ivan.
 
What is the sample rate? I presume you cannot get it low enough without things popping and crackling?

If so look at killing things like OBSound, Windows noises and wireless kit.

I see there is a firmware update on the Behringer site, done that?

Dave.
 
I don't think that this problem is caused by the audio interface anymore. In VSTHost you can see the level of the output volume of a VST plugin, and I see that it always changes only a few moments after I actually press a key.
 
ivanlychkov said:
I don't think that this problem is caused by the audio interface anymore. In VSTHost you can see the level of the output volume of a VST plugin, and I see that it always changes only a few moments after I actually press a key.
Click to expand...

I did not say the interface was necessarily the problem (tho it might well be!) and how fast things move on screen is a bit of a red fish. How low can you get the sample number? People vary in their tolerance of latency delay but most can cope with 128samples or fewer.

Dave.
 
ecc83 said:
I did not say the interface was necessarily the problem (tho it might well be!) and how fast things move on screen is a bit of a red fish. How low can you get the sample number? People vary in their tolerance of latency delay but most can cope with 128samples or fewer.

Dave.
Click to expand...

512 seems to be a decent number. 128 should really good, if your computer can handle 64, you're doing great.

What you might have to do is, drop it down to as low as you can go when recording (the lower your setting the more stress you are putting on resources), increase it when just mixing as high as 1024. When you are just mixing, delay should not cause an issue, just when you are recording.

Also, to reduce computer load, check to see if you have a freeze track option in your DAW (or something similar). For those tracks that are not changing, freezing them takes a load of the computer as well. VSTis and reverb are usually the plugins that require the most resources.
 
Do pay attention to ecc83's advice about shutting down anything you don't need running in background. The more of this you can get rid of, the lower you can probably set your latency without clicks and dropouts. Pay special attention to anything that can use sounds (i.e system sounds) and things like WiFi and anti virus which are designed to grab processor time when needed.

Also, do a Google on "Optimising (Your version of Windows or Apple OS) for audio recording". There are lots of sites out their that give lots of hints about getting rid of the dross and generally speeding stuff up for sound.
 
YES!!!!
Everything's perfect now. Before I have read Dave's most recent message I was blind to the fact that the sample number was set to 2048. My PC handles 128 samples, as I've found out now, and it's just perfect to me. At 64 sound becomes quite distorted, but 128 is just enough for me.
I will see what I can do for optimizing the OS for audio recording, but currently I use two separate instances of Windows, of which one is basically a clean installation, intended only for music recording.
Thank you all so much! I don't think I would ever get everything right without your help.
Ivan.
 
ivanlychkov said:
YES!!!!
Everything's perfect now. Before I have read Dave's most recent message I was blind to the fact that the sample number was set to 2048. My PC handles 128 samples, as I've found out now, and it's just perfect to me. At 64 sound becomes quite distorted, but 128 is just enough for me.
I will see what I can do for optimizing the OS for audio recording, but currently I use two separate instances of Windows, of which one is basically a clean installation, intended only for music recording.
Thank you all so much! I don't think I would ever get everything right without your help.
Ivan.
Click to expand...

Super! I love it when a plan cones together!

Now, re the "clean" install...I am no PC nerd but I would have thought Widows would still install and activate WIFi hardware? It will certainly active the crap system sounds so Frisbee those!
If you have the facility and knowledge to make a bootable image of the music hard drive you could for instance do without a lot of protective stuff like Restore.

I daresn't because I am not that PC clever!

Dave.
 
Hi! I am sorry for resurfacing the thread again, but I want to share the first recording I've done with the new setup. I'm so happy with it. It's a cover of "I Want to Tell You" by The Beatles, one of my favourite bands. I hope you like it.
Ivan.
 
Well if I knew you were going to do that to the Beatles I'd probably have not replied.

[j/k Ivan, nice cover :D ]
 
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