will latency ever bite me in the ass?

wes480

wes480

New member
Ok, I've read all about latency - I understand basically what it is. But there are still some real world things that I just don't get based on my experience.

When I first started out I was using an SBLive! card with a radio shack mic plugged into it. I would record a track with my acoustic guitar, and then play that track back while laying down the vocals. Even did some keyboard from time to time.

I'm sure the latency was outstandingly high - and I never adjusted the setting - at that time I didn't know it existed.

However I never had any problem recording things and playing back with them and getting it in sync. Maybe that set the tone for my general apathy to latency. (Granted I wasn't using any effects back then.)

I then upgraded to a Aardvark Q10. Which had zero-latency monitoring and low latency specs and all that. I got Mackie monitors and refined my overall setup, started using newer software that allowed real-time EQ and the like.

Still I never had to fight with it. I was always able to lay down the tracks I wanted, recording them back on top of each other without timing issues.

I don't really use any effects...to this day, besides a little EQ.

Now I have a presonus firepod and have been reading more into it - as far as how you can mix the zero latency signal with the recorded signal.

I don't understand why "zero latency monitoring" is a good thing - if it creates a difference from what you hear out of the monitors, and the pre-recorded tracks coming from the computer. If the point is that you want to be able to play along with those tracks - shouldn't it all just "mix down" together when it goes to the monitors?

I have a grasp on the technical here but not the practical.

Have I just been dodging bullets? Is latency only really an issue when you are using tons of VSTs or effects? If that is the case...why not just track everything first and save the mixing for later - like a good little engineer :) What types of latencies are considered "not usable" for tracking/mixing?

I have more questions than answers at this point. Hopefully someone can help. All I know is I've never experienced a problem or been concerned with it...maybe it's just the way I am doing things since I pretty much just multi track (i.e lack of complexity)?
 
Seeing that my FirePOD just arrived and I'm setting it up tomorrow, the more I know about latency issues that could arise the better.

I'm coming from a Roland VS-1880 setup... I never had to think about latency!
 
Latency is only a problem when trying to S/W monitor ie. monitoring a live take with efx from the computer.

Mixing latency should be a thing of the past because Most if not all programs of Automatic Delay Compensation
 
i have no clue why anyone would want to monitor a live take with effects...

i guess if a singer wanted reverb in the cans or whatever.

i dunno, i've never bought into any of that.

so i guess that answers my question - latency will never bite me in the ass :)
 
my latency is quite high and i have no clue how to get rid of it. However i very rarely monitor with effects on. and if a singer want some reverb then i tell them to turn up digital reverb on my makedo peavey envoy problem sorted>

Dave
 
wes480 said:
i have no clue why anyone would want to monitor a live take with effects...
Click to expand...

Oh lots of reasons--yeah, reverb. Also if you are trying to play along with a delay, Edge style . . . hmmm, amp simulators, harmonizers . . . definitely hearing an effect changes the performance in ways that are difficult to reproduce effect-free.

But that's mostly for a highly processed style of music.
 
Fire Dome said:
my latency is quite high and i have no clue how to get rid of it. However i very rarely monitor with effects on. and if a singer want some reverb then i tell them to turn up digital reverb on my makedo peavey envoy problem sorted>

Dave
Click to expand...

latency can be taken down by lowering your buffers, either in your software or device control panel if applicable. Try and take it down as low as your computer can handle. I run about 5.2 ms latency, but never use software monitoring.
 
Does latency have anything to do with how long it takes your computer to stop when you hit the 'stop' button?

In Cubase LE there is always a little lag when I use those transport controls - with my nforce2 soundcard.

I still haven't gotten my firepod up and running on my laptop.

I don't know if the nforce2 or the computer is responsible for that. It's a fast computer...2500 athlon 1gig RAM..etc. Maybe Cubase is just kinda slow.
 
punch in

I've found that the zero latency -monitoring on some interfaces comes into play when using the punch in ( over dub ) feature in some multitrack programs .

I use a Tascam US -122 USB interface into Cool Edit ( Adobe 1.5 ) .

With most setups you can only monitor your playback track , not the track that is being recorded . With outboard ( built into your interface device ) zero -latency monitoring , your input signal is mixed with your playback signal ( output track ) so you can hear yourself play in the cans in real time . I record drums so I use isolation headphones and this can be a real helpful feature .

I have since upgraded to a Mackie 1604 mixer so I can mix my send with my monitoring signal before the interface link so the zero -latency monitoring isn't that big a deal for me anymore .
 
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