latency settings?

[lronhoover]

I don't quite understand what this does. I've read things on here about latency settings. I've been recording a project and I am up to 22 tracks, and pretty much done with the recording phase. But I am now having dropouts. If I change my latency settings now will it affect the recorded stuff I now have? Also what is a good general setting to start out with. My computer is a 500mhz, 384 ram, I have 2 hard drives, the one for music is a 7200 rpm 40 gb WD drive. I use pro audio 9 for my recordings. Thanks for any help. And happy new year to one and all. I forgot to add that my projects are all audio, I don't use midi at this time.

 

[dachay2tnr]

Changing the latency on an existing project will not affect the project.

There is no right answer as to what is the proper latency setting. It will differ depending on your computer, your sound card, the sound card drivers, and what type of work you are doing. Input monitoring, for example, requires very low latency settings.

Since you are not using MIDI and your recordings are finished, you should be able to set the latency as high as need be to eliminate the dropouts. Where you will see/hear the effect of the latency is in a slight time lag from when you press the play button and when the music actually starts playing back. Also, when you tweak a plugin, there will be a small delay before you hear the results of the change. Pretty much these issues shouldn't be of any significant consequence.

In addition to moving the latency slider to the right, you can also increase the size/amount of buffers you are using. This will also help to eliminate dropouts.

 

[lronhoover]

Thanks for the input. I was worried if I changed it, that it would affect the other projects. Thanks again, I'll continue to use the search to dig up more on the subject.