latency woes

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jayjames71

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hi peeps
i`m using cool edit to record some bass and vocals, i play with the metronome on and all is good but as soon as i play it back i get the delay .. in the setting, under smpte i have set the LEAD TIME to 50 ms. it wont go any lower
stopping time is set at 1000
lag time 500 (?)
slack time 2.5
clock drift 200

help me please!!!!!!

ahh i have onboard sound nf4 chipset
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I know nothing about cool edit.. but look for buffer settings. There will always be some sort of lag...
 
smileypaul said:
I know nothing about cool edit.. but look for buffer settings. There will always be some sort of lag...
Click to expand...

all the settings that are available i have listed !
ive been playing with them but to know avail.... i think it might be the onboard sound is too crap :(

thx
 
try some ASIO4All drivers (if cooledit supports asio, it will be in the manual)

SMTPE settings will do absolutly nothing since that is a tape sync format
 
Latency has nothing to do with SMPTE. SMPTE Time Code allows a "sync" point for video and audio.

Latency is the amount of time it takes the audio to:

input - convert to digital - travel through USB/Firewire port - into operating system (Windows) - into software - process - back out of software - through operating system - out port - back to analog - to your ears.

As you can see, this is quite the path the signal has to travel. The only way to remove latency using lower-end Firewire/USB gear is to have direct monitoring. Basically, this wires your input directly to your ouput on your interface. Meaning your XLR input is wired to your Speaker/Headphone out. This way, the signal doesn't travel all the way down the line, but simply analog to your ears. It is found on most USB/Firewire interfaces as an option. Of course, you have to mute the track you are recording to in your software to not hear the computer playing back what you are recording.

Using ASIO drivers in Windows can also help reduce the latency, but it will still be noticable to you. I tested this one using an M-Audio Mobile-Pre box. Using WDM dirvers, the round trip signal time was 302ms. Using the ASIO drivers it was down to 40ms, which is still audible to the human year (generally anything around 10ms or 15ms is). Apple CoreAudio is a bit better because of the way Apple implemented this into the OS, by not having to travel through the OS layer, but you will still hear the "delay" effect.

Firewire can also help with this situation.

I know in Pro Tools if you decrease the Hardware Playback Buffer, you can decrease the amount of latnecy occuring. Generally the rule is:

Tracking (no plug-ins) - Lowest Buffer Possible
Mixing (Plug-ins, processor intense) - Largest Buffer Possible

What kind of interface are you using?

Hope this helps a bit!
 
Can you clarify a few things from your original post?

Are you saying when you track with a metronome everything is fine, but when you playback what you just recorded it is out of time against the metronome? Have you tried tracking with the metronome off and seeing what happens?
Does Cool Edit Pro use a MIDI or Audio metronome. (do you have the option to choose?)

Or are you saying when you track/overdub, you hear a delay between what you actually sing/play and what comes back to you through your monitors (or headpones) If this is the case, it's a latency issue, which as has been said, is unrelated to SMPTE time code.

Make sure your sample rate is uniform across all your gear, that can create problems. (for example if you track something at 48, and try to play it back in a 44.1 session without converting, you will hear right away something aint quite right)

I hope this helps, but it was hard to tell where the actual issue is from your post.
 
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