latency confusion

[daveblue222]

ok, lets say i have recorded an acoustic track within cubase, i then want to record an electric guitar part on another track. how do i listen back to the recorded track and monitor the guitar amp (through headphones) with zero latency.

cheers

 

[gecko zzed]

You make sure that you are recording through an interface designed for recording and which is capable of minimising the latency

 

[philbagg]

ok, lets say i have recorded an acoustic track within cubase, i then want to record an electric guitar part on another track. how do i listen back to the recorded track and monitor the guitar amp (through headphones) with zero latency.

cheers

Not too familiar with cubase but is there ways to change hardware buffer settings? If you're running at 1024 samples or 512 samples, that's your problem. Knock it down to something lower like 256 or even 128 samples and it should solve the latency issue.

Cheers,
Phil

 

[mattdee1]

ok, lets say i have recorded an acoustic track within cubase, i then want to record an electric guitar part on another track. how do i listen back to the recorded track and monitor the guitar amp (through headphones) with zero latency.

cheers

Another thing you want to make sure is that your monitor signal is going from your interface directly to your phones, as opposed to going in your interface, through Cubase for processing, etc., and then to your phones. Not sure what interface you have, but mine has a virtual "software mixer" that sits outside of Cubase. Using that mixer, I have the choice of either sending the input/monitor signal directly to my headphones mix, or sending the Cubase-molested signal to the phones, or some mixture of both (the slider labeled "software" controls the Cubase return level). Using only the "direct" signal in the phones mix provides zero latency monitoring.

The catch of course is that you have to monitor a completely dry signal (i.e., you'll only hear what the microphone is picking up, with no added effects). I don't typically find this to be an issue. You can monitor with your Cubase effects applied, but the price of this is latency, unless your computer is powerful enough to run the effects in real time without latency (mine isn't).

Matt

 

[TimOBrien]

Living with Latency:
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jun07/articles/latency_0607.htm

Optimising the Latency of your PC Audio Interface:
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan05/articles/pcmusician.htm

There is a college degree in recording in the articles they've got posted up there.....