Weird Audio Engine latency issue

F

Flet

New member
I'm having a recording issue with the audio engine in Sonar 5.

I have an audio track ready to record bass guitar which is playing direct into the soundcard (M-Audio FireWire 410). I have the input echo button turned ON on the audio track. When I play bass, I have NO latency. Now, I arm the track (with the input echo button still ON) and if I play bass I still have NO latency. No problem. However, the moment I actually hit record and try to play along to record bass, I get latency that is sever enough to inhibit my playing along to the track (the bass sound out of the speakers is behind my actual playing).

This sucks because I did NOT have this issue before and can't for the life of me figure out how this can happen when I record but does not happen when I don't record.

The only work around is that I have to play bass without the input echo on, but then of course I really can't hear the bass and how I'm playing it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, seriously.

Thanks.
 
Seems to me you have two choices - try and lower the latency, or monitor directly off your sound card.

What is the current latency reading in Sonar? Anything over 5ms will probably be too high to effectively play with using Input Monitoring. You can try lowering the buffer size in your M-Audio control applet, or move the latency slider in Options > Audio in Sonar to the left. Also, make sure you are using WDM or ASIO drivers. You won't likely be able to get low enough latency using MME drivers.

The other approach is to monitor directly off the sound card (zero latency). IMO this is the best approach, but will not allow you to hear any effects you might be using in Sonar (e.g., amp sims or reverb) until after you've recorded the part.

I not familiar with the 410 Control applet, but if it is similar to the other M-Audio applets, there should be a area for routing your signals. Change the setting from Wave to H/W in order to monitor directly. (You can also use the Monitor Mix for this as well, if it has it.)

Hope this helps.
 
dachay2tnr said:
The other approach is to monitor directly off the sound card (zero latency). IMO this is the best approach, but will not allow you to hear any effects you might be using in Sonar (e.g., amp sims or reverb) until after you've recorded the part.

I not familiar with the 410 Control applet, but if it is similar to the other M-Audio applets, there should be a area for routing your signals. Change the setting from Wave to H/W in order to monitor directly. (You can also use the Monitor Mix for this as well, if it has it.)

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...


Now, that is an interesting approach and I will look into how to do it because I'm not that familiar with routing anything with the M-Audio software mixer. I'll give it a try but if there is anyone else who had direct experience in doing this I'd appreciate the help.

Thanks for now dachay2tnr.
 
I just checked out the manual for the 410. Direct monitoring is available. See page 23 of your instruction manual.

Pretty easy. Simply assign your Analog In channels to the output pair that you have your monitors/headphones connected to, and raise the fader.
 
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