Input Monitoring Question

[BobOC]

This question is related to the one I posted yesterday (regarding panning). My Cakewalk acquaintance is having a very difficult time getting Input Monitoring to work correctly. He has a new, fairly powerful computer (sorry, I don't know the specs), so there shouldn't be a problem. The computer, however, keeps cutting out when he tries to add effects to tracks as they are recorded.

Can someone give me (us) the basics about how to set up Input Monitoring (latency, etc.)? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks....

Bob O

[minofifa]

personally i have never had any luck with imput monitoring. there has always been too much latency for me. If this is not a problem for you now, it may be when you try to fix your other problem. Basically, from what i have learned though personaly experience and great advice here, is that, by chaning the amount of buffers you use, you can either have low latency OR the ability to process many tracks and effects at once. I have never been able to have both. What sound card are you using again? If it is anything like mine (ASIO or WDM drivers in a tascam us122), you can go to the control panel and open your sound cards options window. IN there you can set the number of buffers your soundcard will use. This is Different than the options you have in the sonar window so don't get confused like i did!
Anywho, if you set the number of buffers to a low number, you will get a lower latency, this is better for imput monitoring because it is cloer to real time. If you set the number of buffers to a high number, you get a higher latency but your setup is more stable (i.e. no aduio droputs when you have lots of tracks and effects to process).

From all of that i guess my adivce would be to noodle with the amount of buffers you use to see if you can find a happy medium. If not, find another wayto montior your stuff. for example, i use direct monitoring on my us122 which is dry but uses no cpu power. That way, latency is not an issue with me because it's already in real time.

If i have said anything wrong, anybody please feel free to correct me. in fact i would like to learn more about this myself.

good luck.

[James Argo]

Bob, Input Monitoring will need good driver and soundcard, because it's difficult to get propher timing without good soundcard. I never use Input Monitoring unless I record with effect on track (just to hear it while recording). In most case, I do realtime monitoring from my soundcard's control panel.

We probably can help you more if you provide information about your friend's soundcard.


Jaymz

[moskus]

I use Input Monitoring exclusively.

Input Monitoring is useless if latency is greater than 10 ms, I prefer lower than that, under 5 ms (2.9 ms to be exact).