Cubase LE latency

[davecooper100]

I have connected an M-Audio Oxygen 61 midi controller to my son's laptop, running Cubase LE. The latency problem is over a second. It's all new to me and I don't seem to be able to solve the problem! You know, I'm sure, what 15 year olda are like. "Dad, haven't you fixed it yet?" My new year will start on a very bad note if you guys can't help me!

 

[TimOBrien]

Latency is caused by the soundcard and its drivers.

ALL onboard soundcard (both laptop and desktop) are made with about 40cents worth of chips and have horrible drivers. They're made for beeps and boops, not music making.

Just to get him started, you can download ASIO4all, a set of lower-latency drivers that will help you. The REAL SOLUTION is to bypass that horrible soundcard with an external usb asio soundcard, which you can pick up for $40-100 or more depending on your budget.

Here's a good guide and user-tested suggestions that work: The Best Audio Interfaces for your Home Studio by TweakHeadz Lab

(you'll want to bookmark and read through all of Tweak's Guide while you're there...)

Another good article: Choosing an audio interface - Choosing An Audio Interface

 

[Guitargodgt]

Tim is 100% correct. But you also want to check your buffer setting as it does have an effect on latency in cubase when playing instruments in real time (has no effect on playback, or it shouldn't if the sound card is reporting latency correctly).

Anyway you do that by:

(menu in cubase) Devices/Device setup...

Selecting your soundcard under "VST audio system"

Hitting the control panel button (if it's there, I assume it would be) and lowering your buffer number (I can stand anything 256 samples and less, some need it lower but I can tolerate it that high).