Explain Latency to me & reverb in zero latency

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mesaboogie5050

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Noob question, but I need to learn.

I know what latency is, as far as the definition but here is my question. Though, I'm hearing myself delayed in latency, is it being recorded before I'm hearing myself?

Therefore I use zero latency with my Saffire mix control on safari pro 40, and I am getting no latency in my monitors, and it's also recording on time as well correct? Just as it was recording on time with latency but I was hearing myself later?

Reverb question

If I want to hear reverb or another effect with zero latency, I know that I have to put that on an aux track, and then the track I'm singing through, I have to send over to that aux track. I have to mute the track so I don't hear myself twice with the latency in monitors.

Now, I understand, I set the aux track (or bus track call it whatever) to prefader.

This is where I do not completely understand. If the audio is muted on the channel, even if I go prefader, why will I not hear the other audio with latency? I know it's muted, but we are talking pre fader.

Is it that the latency track is being recorded post fader and that is muted so I only hear the reverb?

Also, does the aux track contain audio. For example, say it's recorded, could I solo an aux track with reverb and hear the music plus the reverb. Or does it just contain the reverb?

LAST QUESTION:

So, if I'm recording at zero latency through the saffire software mixer, should I turn the buffer size to the highest setting since I'm not using it for latency, thus getting better CPU performance? Or does the buffer size still need to be up as low as it will go? If so, explain to me why, since I'm not monitoring through that.

Because with playback, there is no latency right? Or is there only latency with playback when there are plugins?
 
There should be no audible latency with playback if your DAW isn't total shite. Modern DAWS automatically align the playback to the "slowest" track.

Always have your buffer size as low as you can go.


As for the other stuff, I can't visualize it.
 
Schwarzenyaeger said:
There should be no audible latency with playback if your DAW isn't total shite. Modern DAWS automatically align the playback to the "slowest" track.

Always have your buffer size as low as you can go.


As for the other stuff, I can't visualize it.
Click to expand...

There is no audible latency with recording either. I have a very powerful mac, with a lot of ram and the best processor out. I can go to 32 buffer size. But even then, the few MS that I can't notice, I know they are there and they could get me off on the metronome.

So you're saying my playback has no latency? So my metronome that I'm hearing when doing direct monitoring is on time?
 
You can always just double check visually if you're playing on time by repeatedly hitting an empty guitar string or whatever on the beat and then looking at the waveform in reference to the grid in your DAW.

Your playback probably does have latency but a DAW will compensate for it by making all the tracks equally delayed.
 
If your latency is down to just a few ms, then you have nothing to worry about.

Sound travels through air at roughly 1 foot per millisecond (roughly). So if you play guitar through an amplifier and stand 6 feet away from your amp, there is about 6ms of delay between the time you strike a chord and when the sound reaches your ears. Do you ever experience difficulties keeping time in these situations? Doubtful.

Same goes for bands playing on a stage. If the bassist is 25 feet away from the guitarist, they still have little trouble playing in time with each other. And they're experiencing 25ms of latency! So I wouldn't worry too much about small amounts of latency. Your DAW is adjusting for it (assuming your interface is correctly reporting its input/output latency). If things still seem too out of whack once you get them recorded, you can always nudge the waveform by the appropriate amount to compensate.
 
Well heres the question, if the daw does have latency on playback, does my saffire software zero latency mixer compensate for it?
 
The zero-latency or direct monitoring in interfaces is just a direct connection from inputs to outputs without the round-trip into the computer and back out. If you're monitoring your inputs via direct monitoring, then yes you're hearing very little latency and almost instantaneous signal as you play. But when you play back something that resides on your computer, there will be a little bit of output latency in there because in that case you're monitoring from the software. It takes a few milliseconds for the audio driver to pass through the signal and for DAC. The software is most likely compensating for this output latency as well as input latency, as reported by your interface's ASIO drivers.

:edit:
actually, I think that I just confused myself...I don't know if software can compensate for output latency...the software just generates the data that will be translated into audio by the drivers and the interface's DAC. Even if the software knows how long it'll take to do that conversion, what is it going to do? Output the data sooner? I think that would involve time travel :)
 
Well I do know that software can compensate for latency because Logic Pro X can do that inside of it. By going to low latency mode, it speeds up some plugins and slows down others, all so it will be in time.

The software mixer I'm using for zero latency does have a control for the input from the daw I just now found out. I have it on low as possible.

I still have to record inside of logic with guitar because I use amplitube and that is a plug in. I don't notice any latency in regular recording. But I still choose low latency mode to make sure i'm on the click track for sure.

I also like that the software mixer does other things than just zero latency, it produces 13 different mixes that can go to different headphones or monitors in different rooms. At one time I was running 4 monitors and a subwoofer, with 2 pairs of headphones.
 
To answer your other question regarding reverb - when you put the reverb on another track/bus, fed from an audio track (live or pre-recorded), the DAW does not 'record' that reverb on the track. Sending it 'prefader' means that even if you turn the fader for the main track down to nothing, the sound is still going out to the reverb track - try it, you'll hear it.
 
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