Latency

C

cyanbeat

New member
I'm a home recordist and I've been using the Tascam US122 MKII audio interface to record guitar. Even at the lowest latency setting though, I'm still experiencing latency which is really frustrating to record in real time. Anyone have any tips on reducing latency in general? Btw, I've set my DAW software to the lowest latency possible without pops and crackles.

Thanks
 
First off, download the latency checker from >Thesycon - USB and IEEE 1394 Software Development, USB and Firewire Device Drivers development

Run this little app for 5 minutes or so and see what your system is capable of. This P4 3G XP machine for example easily stays "in the green" for a max figure of ~200microseconds. If your system is worse than that you will need to look at turning things off in the PC such as Windows sounds, bloops and bleeps, the OnBoard Soundcard and especially any wireless devices (tho' a dongle driven wireless kbd and mouse does not seem to matter?).

But it has to be said that the Tascam 122 IS a pretty old AI now and tho I had one briefly I did not check the latency but I suspect it is nothing startling. I had a Fast track pro until recently and that is of similar vintage and that was quite good but nothing like as fast as a modern AI the best of which for the money is surely the Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6.

People vary a lot in their tolerance of latency and many find they can learn to cope with quite big delays. The PC can also be optimized for recording music. I shall see if I can find you a link....

Dave.
 
The US-122 Mk II has a monitor mix function on the top panel. Are you using this? If not, give it a try.

No matter how low your latency settings, listening to audio after it makes a round trip via an interface then a computer is always going to have latency, usually enough to be a problem. That's why so many interfaces have direct hardware monitoring.
 
Bobbsy said:
The US-122 Mk II has a monitor mix function on the top panel. Are you using this? If not, give it a try.

No matter how low your latency settings, listening to audio after it makes a round trip via an interface then a computer is always going to have latency, usually enough to be a problem. That's why so many interfaces have direct hardware monitoring.
Click to expand...

As said, people vary in their tolerance of latency (and you CAN learn to live with it. Many an organ loft is >30mSecs from the congregation!) .

Then, if you need to play a softsynth, Halion in Cubase for example, you need a very low latency system. My son found he could play keys in Cubase pretty well with a fair amount of delay but if trying to keep time with a previous track he needed the fastest setup possible. Fortunately my PCI 2496 card, Cubase Le6 and a 2.7G,2core Win7/64bit PC just fit the bill!

Very few AIs, usb OR firewire can match a 2496 for latency. One that does (cos I don'ed it!) is the NI KA6.

Dave.
 
We still need to determine if he's using an amp sim or not. If not then the simple input monitoring control on the interface will give him true zero latency input monitoring.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
We still need to determine if he's using an amp sim or not. If not then the simple input monitoring control on the interface will give him true zero latency input monitoring.
Click to expand...

Indeed we do!
But it is as well to consider latency when chosing an AI. If you think you might want to run FX back to monitor or use a keyboard and play synths or samples then low latency is a priority. It is unfortunate that many companies advertise "Ultra Low Latency" when their products are nothing of the sort or, they secretly mean the kludge that is zero latency monitoring which is not at all what is needed. Beware also of anything using "generic" drivers, these are generally poo. Companies that spend out on proper, well behaved drivers are also likely to build good electronics. Nothing is certain in this world of course but likely!

If however you only need an AI for tracking, latency is relatively unimportant...Couldn't do it with tape could we???

Dave.
 
ecc83 said:
Indeed we do!
But it is as well to consider latency when chosing an AI. If you think you might want to run FX back to monitor or use a keyboard and play synths or samples then low latency is a priority. It is unfortunate that many companies advertise "Ultra Low Latency" when their products are nothing of the sort or, they secretly mean the kludge that is zero latency monitoring which is not at all what is needed. Beware also of anything using "generic" drivers, these are generally poo. Companies that spend out on proper, well behaved drivers are also likely to build good electronics. Nothing is certain in this world of course but likely!

If however you only need an AI for tracking, latency is relatively unimportant...Couldn't do it with tape could we???

Dave.
Click to expand...

Oh, I dunno!

Both my old tape machines (a quarter inch Akai and a 1 inch 8 track Brennel) had switches to swap between input and the playback head output. If you wanted to vary the latency on the playback head, there was always the ability to switch between 3 3/4, 7 1/2 and 15 ips! :)

It's interesting the different sensitivities to latency that people claim to have. Some people have claimed that even the <2ms latency (input to output via an effect) that you get with most modern digital mixers is really annoying--I'm sceptical they can hear it. That sort of latency is equivalent to being 2 feet from you mic and hearing your voice though a monitor system. On the other hand, I've met plenty of people who put up with >20ms latency without even noticing it.

Edited to add...if you have an old tape machine lying around, a great party game is to get somebody reciting a nursery rhyme or something into a recorder set for direct monitoring, then suddenly switch to the playback head while they're speaking. They'll suddenly sound drunk--gets a laugh every time and it's cheaper than giving them beer!

Anyhow, good advice about drivers etc. though it's not just the AI that affects things. Frankly, my main advice to anyone would be to just avoid using live amp simulators or VSTi's on the computer you're using for recording. So long as you can stick to direct hardware monitoring, you don't need to even think about latency--but, if you want to push the boundaries, you have to take what you can get.
 
What I meant about tape Bobbs was that you could not play an instrument and listen to it off tape.
The calculated latency from my Teac A3440 at 15ips (mk1 eyeballing the headspacing as 1.5") is 66mSecs. Don't think anybody could live with that!

Dave.
 
As I stated in another post, I am using an M-Audio 192 PCI card and I do direct monitoring of my vocals with effects and I get, at most a latency that is about that of a chorus effect. When I was using a USB (Presonus) it seemed there was more, but not much more. From what little I know, the primary latency issue centers around the buffer size. The lower the buffer the less latency, but, the more stress on the CPU, hence setting the buffer rate to balance quality vs latency.
 
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