Setting latency in reaper ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter PoorBoyRecordings
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PoorBoyRecordings

PoorBoyRecordings

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I have been messing around with some digital recording with several different DAW's and I am starting to use Reaper. I can say it works great on songs that I download to mix or the songs for song compititions, but when I started to try and record my own stuff and the latency is off. I have looked through the manual, looked through the settings in the app, and I cannot find anything about it. Could someone please tell me how to set it ( latency ) so I can do some recordings with it.
 
If you mean input monitoring latency, the best option is to disable software input monitoring in Reaper and use the hardware input monitoring in you interface.

If you mean record latency, where the newly recorded track is offset in time from the existing tracks go to Preferences -> Recording and look at the bottom of the window. Check out this liink:

How to Compensate for Interface Latency - CockosWiki
 
Latency is controlled by your soundcard and it's drivers.

Options>Preferences>Audio>Device
Pick your interface and hit the ASIO control panel.

It would help if you tell us what hardware you are using.
Hopefully you are using a real asio souncard/interface and not the cheap onboard booper.
 
Raw latency is down to your audio interface and its driver software, make sure Reaper is using the ASIO drivers of your interface as mentioned above. Also become familiar with the "performance monitor" in Reaper, which displays the CPU use and the latency of the FX you have running on each track. Some FX (like Reaverb) can be forced into Zero latency modes that you can use while tracking if your CPU can keep up. And you will probably want to switch off master bus FX while recording as well. Tracks that are sucking up resources can be rendered/frozen so you can still hear them when recording.

I am still new to Reaper, but have found latency issues are one of it's strengths compared to another more commercial DAW I have used. I like to track though the DAW rather than using direct monitoring and can work as low as 2ms on my budget interface and 4yo computer. I find anything below about 6ms is responsive enough.

P.S.

What I mean by "Raw latency" is what you set your audio interface "buffer size" to. You should be able to access that from Reaper as described above. Some audio interfaces will speak in ms and others in samples. If you are recording at 48kHz then 48 samples = 1ms. Your audio interface needs a "buffer" to organise itself before converting to analogue and you want that buffer to be as small as possible because that is the raw latency. However, the smaller the buffer is the harder your system has to work to deliver everything on time. So you have to make it as small as you can before the sound starts to "crackle", which is the sound you will get when your system can't keep up.

THEN you have to remember that if you have set your latency to 2ms, and then you start bunging in FX plugins that demand 4ms to do whatever it is they do, then that will be added to the overall latency. Also, the more demand you put on the CPU, the harder it will find to make the 2ms deadline you have set, so you may need to juggle your priorities about what you want done, and the size off the buffer (which is the case for any Digital recording system).
 
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Thanks again guys. All your input has been very helpful. All I am using is my desktop computer, a Yamaha MG8/2FX stereo sound card plugged directly into the computer and record direct in. I would love to get a sound card but don't know were to start or what to look for. I don't need anything expensive as I just do this for myself. I don't know if I would need it or not, but if I bought some sort of USB input would I still need a firewire or anything else ?
 
You can set latency offset/compensation. Meaning, if there is a 1 ms latency, you can set it in Reaper to compensate for the 1ms latency so everything lines up correctly in the actual rendered recording.

Tried to keep is simple, so I didn't go into detail. Reaper manual goes into better detail.
 
I know what you mean DM60... I just re-read my post #4 and I'm not sure if it's helpful or confusing :)

PoorBoy, if you want to start with a simple 2 in 2 out interface then USB 2.0 is fine (I think even USB 1.0 could handle 2 in/out). They are quick easy to use, and USB looks like it will be a standard for a few years yet.

The type of connection (USB/Firewire) effects the number of channels you can run rather than latency (from memory).
 
$150 will get you a decent 2-channel USB audio interface, I'd be saving my money if I were you!
 
Here is a good article on latency, it is from Presonus and it is somewhat of an advertisement, but the fundamentals are there: Interface Latency
 
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