How much latency is acceptable?

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Free_Fall

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how much latency will not create any problem. Im a newbie and i found that 25 ms latency is also problematic. What do u say?

It it possible to get 0 latency? How?

Thanks...
 
Never physically possible for 0 latency, but certainly close, as electricity travels at close to the speed of light. But anything under 20 is meant to be undetectable. I don't see 25 being that big of a problem.
 
Thanks for replying. I use focusrite 6 and connect it to guitar and record to metronome. Recorded sound sounds after metronome.

What happens whne i increase input sample rate...i found that when i increase input sample rate latency decreases. i have options for input sample rate are 22050, 44100, 48000, 88200, 96000. I heard that high sample rate increases latency.

thanks.
 
Are you using the hardware monitoring in your Saffire 6? That should reduce the latency down to practically non-existent.
 
Free_Fall said:
Thanks for replying. I use focusrite 6 and connect it to guitar and record to metronome. Recorded sound sounds after metronome.

What happens whne i increase input sample rate...i found that when i increase input sample rate latency decreases. i have options for input sample rate are 22050, 44100, 48000, 88200, 96000. I heard that high sample rate increases latency.

thanks.
Click to expand...

I/O buffer samples in the audio hardware preferences of you DAW. you want it as low as possible. That's where you can adjust your latency.

The sample rates you listed are for how many pieces 1 second of audio will be chopped into. Nyquist's Theory and what not.
 
if im am playing drums on a MIDI kit I like the buffer on 64. That's not always possible on my rig depending on the drum plug and # of audio tracks. Piano I am ok with 128. Folks will tell you it doesn't matter. YMMV :-)
 
There's no single standard sample rate.

For CDs, 44.1KHz is the only rate that can be used; for working with video, 48KHz is normal. However, some people believe that recording at 88, 96 or even 192KHz then converting to 44.1 (or 48) after the mix improves quality. Others argue that this is a pointless exercise and there's no difference--and it always starts an argument.

Frankly, unless you have top of the line gear and monitoring, 44.1 is probably the sample rate to work at.

As for latency, if you use the hardware monitoring in your interface (and are not working with MIDI that needs a round trip through your computer, it shouldn't be an issue. In timing terms, lower is always better but the trade of is that, without the benefit of big buffers, playback can glitch and dropout if the settings are too small. I know some people who crank down the latency/buffer size when tracking then turn it up for mixing. However, as I say, if you use hardware monitoring this shouldn't be necessary.
 
Free_Fall said:
What is the standard sample rate?
Click to expand...

Bobbsy is correct. A standard CD is 44.1 kHz 16 bit.

The human ear hears up to 20,000 Hz (20 kHz), IIRC.

Very much a basic explanation: Nyquist theorized that in order to record audio at what would be as close to as exact a copy as possible, you would have to record it at double the highest frequency in the dynamic range, which would be 40 kHz. We record at 44.1 for a little headroom.

Your sample rate takes the frequency per second and chops it up into pieces which are then reconstructed within your DAW. So for 44.1, there are 44,100 pieces sampled per second of sound.

Think of I/O buffer as memory allocation for your computer. Information loads into the buffer by the size you specify. A larger buffer means more info is stored each cycle. This means it takes longer to load those chucks into the buffer, which is why there is latency. It's like how a large program takes longer to load than a small program.

Bobbsy is correct again... Too low of a buffer setting will result in pops and clicks. Too high produces too much latency during recording.

The best solution is to max out the ram on your computer and make sure you are not recording to your OS hd (your computer uses hd space as virtual RAM).
 
How much latency bothers you depends upon what you are doing as well as personal foibles.
My son is quite happy playing Pianoteq at 256 samples (2496 PCI card) when just "playing". However he finds a problem when trying to keep time with an existing track as even a tiny delay results in the MIDI data being written "late". He can overcome this with practice and some track "sliding" after! People will say "But if a guitarist is 10feet from his stack he gets a 9mS delay, so what's the problem?" As with my son's issue, it is not always as simple as that.

FYI the only really independant tests that have been done show that hardware is responsible for maybe up to 75% of latency and I has to be said that the Saffires are not top draw in this regard.

Dave.
 
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