Mixing Latency simple question...

[carlosguardia]

Hello my fellow Cool Kids who use Sonar... here's a simple question that I don't know the answer to. I have a P IV 1.6GHZ with 512 MB Ram running Sonar 2.0 XL, a Delta 1010Lt and a SB Platinum Live 5.1; now, when I go to Options>>Audio>>Mixing Latency, there are two options:
Buffers in Playback Queue and Buffer Size. Right now I have it set like this:
Buffers in Playback Queue: 2
Buffer Size: 1.5 msec
Still, set up like this, when I want to record a vocal track there is a very slight but disturbing latency that I would love to fix somehow.
If I want NO LATENCY (NO DELAY BETWEEN THE SOURCE AND THE MONITORING) what is the ideal setting. I might need to add that the most amount of tracks that I'll record at one time is 4 (that's when recording drums). Thanks again for your help.

Carlos

 

[carlosguardia]

200th POST!!!

Oh and congratulations to me on my 200th!!!

 

[Wurlitzer]

There is no way you could notice a latency that small. Conventional wisdom is that one starts to consciously notice latency once it gets to about 20-25 ms. OK, there are people who claim to be disturbed by smaller amounts than that, but 3ms? I wouldn't think so.

To put things in perspective, sound travels at a speed of about 1 metre per millisecond. Which means that 3 seconds of latency is equal to the difference between listening to your speakers at one place in the room, and listening to them three metres further back.

I would suggest that the latency is somewhere else in your system. Hard to say where without knowing all the gear involved. Or perhaps Sonar is reporting something wrongly, or you're reading it wrongly.

What you are asking for - NO latency - is technically impossible. The fact is that a computer computes, and this computing will take a certain amount of time. No matter how fast computers get, they will always take SOME time to convert an analogue signal into numbers, and this is what the latency is. The whole business of PC recording relies on a sleight of hand - achieving a latency small enough that we PERCEIVE it as no latency at all. And as I said, the realistic level at which this occurs is well above 3 ms.

 

[dachay2tnr]

Conventional wisdom is that one starts to consciously notice latency once it gets to about 20-25 ms. .

Actually I believe it is more like 5-10 ms - depending on your sensitivity - but your points are still valid.

Anything below 5ms is pretty much imperceptable by anyone.

 

[Porter]

carlosguardia,

Are you using WDM or ASIO drivers? Some sound cards allow '0 latency' monitoring using ASIO drivers (something like a monitor mixer). Basically, the signal travels to your sound card then goes two directions, one to your monitors and the other to the software.

The only disadvantage of using this sort of monitoring is that you can't monitor with effects... in saying all that, I was recording vocals last night at 5.8ms latency... there was a very slight delay, however it wasn't that 'disturbing'.

Second question... what are you monitoring from? Are you using the Delta to record and the SB to hear playback.... that would cause a bigger latency...

Porter

 

[carlosguardia]

Well, the latency is there and I don't know where I could adjust to fix this. Does any user here use the Delta 1010LT with a SB Live Platinum 5.1??!! I don't know where or why but when I record via the mic/line input of the SB Live, there is NO perceivable latency, I can monitor (without effects) and when I monitor with effects the latency becomes obvious and I would guess it's more like at around 100 or 200 miliseconds. When I plug something into my 1010lt (a microphone for instance) I cannot hear anything through my monitors unless I enable the input monitoring... however there is a latency, much like when I use the SB Live, of something like 100 or 200 ms. I don't know much about drivers, I think I'm using the WDM drivers but I'm not sure. In the control panel for the 1010lt, the default cache for buffering (don't know what it is...) is set a 384... I lowered that to the minimum which is 64, and got a screen that said that with this setting, the latency at 44.1 would be 0 ms... however, I still perceive the same disturbing latency. I do have a question; what are the buffers in playback queue??!! I've played around with these and they seem to cause dropouts the smaller number I choose... but this doesn't seem to affect the latency. URGGGHHHH.... To answer Porter's Question, I'm using whatever card I record with to monitor... if I'm recording with the 1010 and try to monitor with the SB, I get a really weird sound... when I change that to the 1010 it sounds great, but the latency is always there.... damn latency... if it was really at 10 or 20 ms I know that it wouldn't bother me that much, but where it's at now, it's very disturbing.

Carlos