Tracking down cause of Latency - Help!

A

AudioWebs

New member
Ok - My entire set-up is identical to before, except now I am using a REAL soundcard (tascam us-122).

I get latency when:

1. I simply play a track back in fruity loops AND in cakewalk.
2. I just play a simple metronome - latency! The metronome sounds almost random......

3. I record, the playback is messed up.

Here is the deal - There is a setting for latency in the soundcards properties - at one end I get high latency, the other end low, but at the low end the recording is out of sync.

I have a 1.2 athlon and 256 RAM. I would think this would be enough to not have latency. What do you think?

The only thing different is the soundcard - are there other places to correct for latency? Could it be my RAM is not enough for this good (USB) card?

Thanks - dying to fix this to start my new recordings!
 
AudioWebs said:
Ok - My entire set-up is identical to before, except now I am using a REAL soundcard (tascam us-122).

I get latency when:

1. I simply play a track back in fruity loops AND in cakewalk.
2. I just play a simple metronome - latency! The metronome sounds almost random......

3. I record, the playback is messed up.

Here is the deal - There is a setting for latency in the soundcards properties - at one end I get high latency, the other end low, but at the low end the recording is out of sync.

I have a 1.2 athlon and 256 RAM. I would think this would be enough to not have latency. What do you think?

The only thing different is the soundcard - are there other places to correct for latency? Could it be my RAM is not enough for this good (USB) card?

Thanks - dying to fix this to start my new recordings!
Click to expand...

Do you have other USB devices connected? USB's 12mbps bandwidth is shared across all connected devices at any given time.
 
Some questions and some points --

What you describe does not sound to me like latency. Latency is the offset in time between the time sound enters the inputs, is converted in the souncard's ADC, is processed through whatever softwrae is being used, and hits the hard drive. It's typically only an issue on recording if you are trying to monitor the result of effects plug-in in real time, or if you are trying to play software synths in real time (on normal recording and playback the software compensates for the lag). If it was a latency issue, it would also be a steady difference in timing -- it sounds like you are describing something that's occuring in fits and starts.

You say "I simply play a track back in fruity loops AND in cakewalk..." Do you mean Fruity Loops and Cakewalk at the same time? I'm not sure this is even possible. If it is, you need to have soundcard drivers that are multi-client, meaning more than one application can address the drivers at any time.

Also, when you say Cakewalk, I'm recalling (hopefully correctly) that you are talking about Home Studio 2002.

Finally, you say "I have a 1.2 athlon and 256 RAM. I would think this would be enough to not have latency. What do you think?" First off, there is always some latency. The best you can get currently is on the order of 5 ms, which is imperceptible for practical purposes. But that can only be achieved with WDM or ASIO drivers and software that can take advantage of them. The CPU speed and RAM size have little to do with soundcard latency; they have more effect on things like number of plug-ins and your track count.
 
Al - I meant that the same exact issue occurs in both programs. No I don't run them both at the same time.

Here is what occurs - If I play a track, no matter how complex, or even just a metronome, instead of the metronome sounding like this:

beep --- beep --- beep --- beep --- beep --- beep

it sounds like this:

beep ------beep - beep - beep - beep ------beep

in other words it slows down, then is faster to catch up, then slow etc....

So what happens is, if I set the latency on my soundcards properties to the 2048 end, the metronome is VERY BAD.

If I set it towards the 256 end, the metronome is 99% fine, but there is a longer off-sync of my recording with the other previous tracks.....

So in otherwords, I could potentially fix the issue with setting it to 256, but then my recordings are out of sync.

Any ideas on the cause.....

I can only imagine, since it happens in both programs, and didn't happen 'till i got this soundcard, that there is either a setting I'm missing on the computer itself, or on the soundcard, or that I need more ram.

Let me know your troubleshooting thoughts!
 
PS: No other USB devices connected currently.

PSS: I can't imagine it being a RAM problem when even a simple metronome can't play right!

It's as if the soundcard has caused the audio ability of my computer to suck!

Howeven, I should mention playing mp3's work absolutely fine. It's only playing stuff in fruity and cakewalk that do this - and those programs must have some sort of setting I'm missing.
 
BTW - There is no longer a problem in fruity. The problem was fixed by setting the buffer to maximum.

The cakewalk buffer is at highest - but still issues occuring. I am trying settings now.
 
AudioWebs said:
I think I may have solved it. I will have to record something to see the lag, but the metronome is now fine.
Click to expand...

Are you talking about the metronome in Cakewalk thru MIDI?

There are issues with MIDI timing when it comes to USB. Because of flaws in the communications protocol, timing can be off for MIDI events. I believe the correct term is MIDI 'jitter'. Basically, with USB there is no guarantee data travelling down the interface will come out at the one end in the same way it went it (timing-wise).

Some newer USB MIDI interfaces fix this with some kind of time stamp, but I have no idea if the Tascam does...
 
This jitter you speak of, brzilian, is on the order of 10-15 ms and would be imperceptible to anyone but the most super-sensitive. It could not account for the herky-jerky effect that AudioWebs describes. I have a USB MIDI interface and it's fine, I detect no timing issues at all. The time stamp you speak of is not available on the Tascam, only on Steinberg interfaces.

I suspect it's a clock issue. What are the recording and playback timing masters set at in Home Studio's Audio options dialog box?
 
Just a quick question,

What are you using for you recording and play back masters? Under Options -> Audio, make sure they are both set the card that you are recording/playing back. If they are set different this may cause the metronome issue which you were speaking about... give it a try.

Porter
 
yes they'r eboth fine.

I may have fixed the problem. the metronome sound fine but haven't gotten a chanc to check latency in the recording...

Here is the change I made - in the options - audio section there is an option under the "mixing latency" tab that is called "buffer in playback queue" which was set to 4. I set it to 16, the maximum.

this is the only mixing latency option except the buffer size itself, which was maxed out to begin with....

I will get back to you on the recording latency with these settings just a minute!
 
Ok I have isolated the issue. Let me explain because I am dying to fix this.

The cakewalk track has a volume bar for incoming sound right.

Ok, and my soundcard as a "direct input" which sends the info RIGHT as it hits the soundcard, straight to my moniters so it's in sync with my backtracks I'm playing over, get it?

well the direct input is of course perfectly synced with my playing.

but the volume bar on the cakewalk track is VERY delayed.

So the problem lies somewhere in there!!!!!

I am dying here so thanks guys for the help appreciat eit!
 
1. my tascam properties lists the "resolution" as 24 bit. Is this the same as the audio driver bit depth? because it was at 16 in HS2002. Or is resolution the same as "file bit depth" ?? which was also at 16..

2. There are two settings regarding latency in hs2002. One is the "buffers in playback queue" and one is"buffer size".

3. on the tascam properties the only televant info is the latency option which goes from 256 to 2048.

What happens is the volume bar is WAY lagged, over 5 seconds, but the actual recording is only ms's lagged...

I am unsure as to how to handle these above settings?
 
I suspect you are monitoring the signal after it's recorded (that is, the input signal comes in, and goes through the software, and then get recorded to disk, and then added to the output stream) -- rather than -- or in addition to -- using the direct monitoring of the input signal available on the box.

You simply can't listen to the track you are recording like this without an unacceptable delay. You are playing in response to the playback, and when you record, the track you recorded is adjusted to be in sync with the existing tracks, but you can't listen to this data as it's being recorded or you'll be thrown off.

I don't feel like I'm explaining this very well. The SONAR Help file has a good explanation of this with pictures and all, and I suspect it's in the HS 2002 Help file too. Do a search on "input monitoring."

As far as the metronome problem, what is the source of the click sound?
 
AlChuck said:
I don't feel like I'm explaining this very well. The SONAR Help file has a good explanation of this with pictures and all, and I suspect it's in the HS 2002 Help file too. Do a search on "input monitoring."

As far as the metronome problem, what is the source of the click sound?
Click to expand...

reads correct to me, found the same issue...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top