Latency issue

N

nbtd245

New member
Hi, looking into getting back into recording and I'm dealing with latency issues I haven't experienced before. Setup:

MCA SP1 mic (with Sterling Audio PHP1 power supply) plugged into a Behringer U-Phoria UMC22 audio interface through 1/4" cable, UMC22 into computer through USB
Windows 10
Audacity for DAW

I still get a small gap in between a strum and the playback through my headphones. I've messed with the latency settings in Audacity which doesn't seem to change anything. I was initially running my guitar pedal straight into the audio interface but a friend told me that could be causing the latency which is why I switched to the mic setup, but I seem to be getting the same amount of latency. Any suggestions?
 
Unless you were running some type of amp sim in Audacity, there shouldn't be any difference between a mic and line in. The latency comes from the "round trip" the audio has to take between the input to the UMC22, through the computer and back to the UMC22.

You don't say what type of computer you are using. Processor, speed, memory, etc. That will have a bearing on how quickly the computer can turn the audio around. Also what driver are you using for the interface? The standard driver for that interface is Asio4All, if I'm not mistaken.

One thing you can do is to direct monitor the input. I don't have a Berry, but you should be able to find instructions on setting direct monitoring.
 
TalismanRich said:
Unless you were running some type of amp sim in Audacity, there shouldn't be any difference between a mic and line in. The latency comes from the "round trip" the audio has to take between the input to the UMC22, through the computer and back to the UMC22.

You don't say what type of computer you are using. Processor, speed, memory, etc. That will have a bearing on how quickly the computer can turn the audio around. Also what driver are you using for the interface? The standard driver for that interface is Asio4All, if I'm not mistaken.

One thing you can do is to direct monitor the input. I don't have a Berry, but you should be able to find instructions on setting direct monitoring.
Click to expand...

No amp sim in Audacity.

AMD FX-8350 Eight-Core Processor
16GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770

I don't have a sound card. I've been told those are basically obsolete these days? Not sure if I'm getting good information. I haven't been in the loop with computer hardware in over a decade. Just had this computer built for me last year. As for drivers I just downloaded the UMC22 drivers from Behringer and Asio4All. I guess what it comes down to is just my fundamental lack of understanding of how to record. I can plug headphones into the UMC22 and direct monitor, but my question is when I go to lay down another track, how am I supposed to hear the first track? Like if I record my guitar track and then go to record a bass track, how can I hear both what I'm currently playing and the original track so I can line them up?
 
You shouldn't need a sound card with the UMC22. It should handle all the audio I/O duties.

You might want to run LatencyMon. It will give you a measure of your overall system latency. I would think the AMD would have enough power to have reasonable numbers. It should be somewhere close to a Core I5 processor. You can adjust your buffer size to try to lower the latency. The UMC is limited to 48kHz. With 256 sample buffer, you will have at best 6ms. If you have other programs running in the background, that can add to the latency as the CPU is off doing other duties.

6ms of latency is equal to having sound travel about 6 ft. That should be pretty close of keeping on pace with a recording. With Direct monitoring, you should hear the playback coming from the already recorded tracks, and the direct feed from your new track. There is an adjustment in Audacity where it will automatically compensate the recording of the new track. That way you don't continually build lag with multiple tracks.

I don't use Audacity for recording, but the Instructions are in instruction manual.

You might also look at a different recording software. I went with Reaper. You can download it and test it to see if it works better for your purposes. It will check your system and you can have it automatically compensate by moving the track to line up after recording. My system with an I5 processor and a Tascam US16x08 reports 1.5/5ms latency when I record at 96kHz. I still use direct monitoring when I track just to keep things tight.
 
This link above will help optimize your system for any interface and recording.

I agree that Reaper is a good choice. Audacity is not a DAW. It is a simple wav file editor.

When you find the difference, you will know.

Best! :)
 
The "latency bug" comes up almost weekly on this forum and the answer is always the same.

The speed of the computer matters little*. The main issue is with the AI and especially the drivers and that means well written ASIO drivers and of course you need a DAW that can handle ASIO and Reaper is the very chap.

Suspicious? Well over ten years ago peeps were running MIDI rigs with Pentiums but they were using good cards like M-Audio 2496, Edirol or, if you were rich, an RME pci jobbie....As home recording took off people tried to use Sound Blaster type cards with poor results.

Horses for....

*For a couple of tracks and no pluggins.

Dave.
 
Your problem is Audacity. It does not support ASIO. As mentioned above, find a DAW that supports ASIO and then set the buffers and your delay will be significantly reduced, not totally removed but tolerable.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
DM60 said:
Your problem is Audacity. It does not support ASIO. As mentioned above, find a RAW that supports ASIO and then set the buffers and your delay will be significantly reduced, not totally removed but tolerable.
Click to expand...

Agreed but does the Behringer HAVE any decent ASIO drivers?

Dave.
 
DM60 is correct in that Audacity doesn’t natively support ASIO as Audacity is open source software and the GPL doesn’t permit it. But if you are fairly computer literate, you can compile the source code to include ASIO as referenced with Audacity’s Wiki: (Note, it’s not difficult if you follow the instructions but it might be a ton easier to use a real DAW (ie..Reaper, Studio One, Pro Tools etc.)

Just a moment...

Audacity and ASIO

Audacity, as an open source program licensed under the GPL, is therefore currently unable to support ASIO, despite being ASIO-capable (providing the user's sound device is similarly capable). If ASIO support were distributed in Audacity builds this would either violate Steinberg's licence agreement if the code were included, or conversely would violate Audacity's GPL Licence if the code were withheld. There are persistent rumours of Steinberg opening up licensing, but without any apparent movement. Anyone who cares about this issue is invited to make their views known to Steinberg via their Contact page.
Non-distributable ASIO support in Audacity

Audacity provides ASIO support on Windows for individuals who are prepared to compile Audacity from source code using the optional Steinberg ASIO SDK.
ASIO support is provided strictly on the basis that it is NON-DISTRIBUTABLE, that is, you may NOT copy or distribute builds including ASIO support to anyone else. The build is strictly for your own personal (private or commercial) use. For the same reasons, Audacity can NOT distribute builds of Audacity including ASIO support, so please don't ask!

The following is an overview of compiling Audacity from source code including ASIO support.
Install the free Microsoft Visual Studio Community Edition Integrated Development Environment (IDE).
Download and install the ASIO SDK from Steinberg.
Download the source code of the latest Audacity release from Releases * audacity/audacity * GitHub. Follow the steps in win/compile.txt in the source code to:
Download and install the wxWidgets GUI toolkit then build wxWidgets using Visual Studio.
Set the WXWIN environment variable to the directory where you installed Widgets and set the ASIOSDK_DIR environment variable to the directory where you installed the ASIO SDK. Reboot the computer.
Build Audacity using Visual Studio.
Follow the instructions and download links on Developing On Windows in the Audacity Wiki for full details.
 
Rather than go through the ritual of getting Audacity to work with ASIO, just use Reaper which is way more flexible, way more powerful, and is fine with ASIO.
 
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