dear sirs and madams

[lharless]

could you kindly help me with these things?

i do live venue recording with the onyx 1640/tracktion version 1 combo. sometimes the guitarist or vocalist will want to add a thickening track or a harmony track over the original show, using an amp sim. i have experienced alot of latency while doing this.

could you kindly explain to me the best way of doing overdubs with tracktion 1? i have a nice full bodied laptop with all of the latest greatest specs. im also using a cardbus firewire i/o. p4 3.2g, 1g ram, 800fsb, 2x60 5400rpm, 1x120g 7200rpm (external firewire/usb audio disk)...(which connection should i use with this drive? usb or firewire? and can i run all of this through a cardbus adapter that has two inputs? will it bottleneck at the cardbus? somebody told me that my 4pin connection was bottlenecking the signal from the firewire card on the board. so i bought a cardbus i/o hoping to aleviate the problem. should i just connect the drive to the onyx firewire? or should i connect it to the usb or seperate firewire input on the laptop while the onyx goes into the other firewire connection at the cardbus? is this enough to realistically do 16 live tracks and then perform an overdub or two after the fact? and if so, how do i get the latency down to an operable level? what am i missing? am i complicating things too much? how can i get this under control? i used to be able to do this with my pro tools le rig with no problems, so i think tracktion should be able to handle it right? i wonder if the pt le rig had onboard dsp or something that made the latency less. what can i do, im going crazy. i want to be ready for the guy that wants to do overdubs. at this point, im only able to record the show and mix it down beause the latency would be too much to add tracks after the fact and keep them in sync. i feel stupid, but i've been reading, and i can't figure it out. i'm a tracktion noob, and im confused. and nothing i try works. but i sure it will eventually when i get it all sorted out.

i can't figure it out. im not sure if im doing it right. i don't have anything set up at the moment asit is packed up from the last show. but ill be doing overdubs soon, and i need to get the latency issue under control.

i think its at something like 6ms or something. that seems to be alot for overdubbing guitars and vocals. i can hear the delay in the cans. and it throws me off, as i have tried to replicate a working situation with another band at a rehearsal, for overdubs and such, and the latency really was almost unbearable. but im sure it's something im doing wrong.

im at wits end trying to figure it out. am i missing anything? is there someone who would be willing to actually "step by step" me through it?

yes, i need my hand held on this one....

[haydxn]

i'm afraid i can't help immediately with this one, but surely the latency is higher than 6ms if you can hear it?

not being arsey honest! just wondering if that figure is accurate, i'm pretty sure 6ms can't possibly cause a noticeable delay? shoot me if i'm wrong!

i hope someone can help :S

[Graeme]

If the latency is truly around the 6 mS mark but you 'can hear the delay in the cans', then I suspect your real problem is that you are monitoring the same signal from two sources - this would be confusing for the artist. Simply playing along with a track (with a 6mS latency) wouldn't cause any real problem, I doubt many people could play with anything like that sort of consistency - my live rig has a 17 mS latency, but it's not noticeable at all.

[lharless]

oh yeah, you're right. ill have to set everything up and see what it was up to. it was pretty noticeable. ill do that tomorrow. i have the day off at the shop. ill get a chance to get everything out of the cases and take a better look.

im getting the feeling that i have just overlooked something or that i have a setting wrong.

i can think of several things that it may be. ill have to try some things and let you all know what's being affected. ill make sure to document what's going on, a little better, when i get everything up and running out of the cases tomorrow.

thnx anyway haydxn!

[valley]

guitarists and vocalists tend to notice latency more than keyboardists (don't know why) - so spotting a six ms latency is not impossible. Personally I'm not all that aware of latency until around 10ms.

[valley]

external firewire/usb audio disk)...(which connection should i use with this drive? usb or firewire?

Theoretically firewire, but XP seems to have problems with getting maximum throughput over firewire. There are test suites available that measure throughput / cpu usage for drives when under load. I'll try and dig out a link. If you use one of those, you can see whether firewire or usb will work best for you.

and if so, how do i get the latency down to an operable level?

Go to the settings page and look at the latency figure given.

Remember that when you send audio into Tracktion, and then back out again, you are doubling the latency, so you want to aim for a figure that is 6ms or less (IE a total of 12ms).

so i think tracktion should be able to handle it right?

it shouldn't have problems with this.

i think its at something like 6ms or something. that seems to be alot for overdubbing guitars and vocals. i can hear the delay in the cans. and it throws me off, as i have tried to replicate a working situation with another band at a rehearsal, for overdubs and such, and the latency really was almost unbearable. but im sure it's something im doing wrong.

Firtsly, check what your latency actually is. Then check Graeme's advice to ensure that you don't have zero latency monitoring enabled for your audio device. Even though 6ms is a small number, you will hear phasing artifacts if the non delayed signal is merged with the delayed.

[lharless]

its like a subtle slapback delay. very quick, but it's there. and it has thrown me off when i was trying the system out. i have been recording and mixing with it, but im afraid to have anybody do any overdubs for fear that they'll freak out and want me to fix it, and me not be able to... you know?

i have to fix this, but i've been able to operate without fixing it. but i need to be able to do overdubs for my own stuff, and at this point, im pretty sure that i have a setting in the wrong place.

[IIRs]

I definitely find I need lower settings with guitars & amp sims than I do with MIDI & softsynths.. then again I'm a guitarist not a keyboard player.

2 possible ways aruond it: if dropping the latency to a low enough value overstresses your cpu, try selecting all the tracks except the overdub guitar, and hitting freeze. You may be able to get away with lower settings if you make sure the cpu load is always very small..

Alternatively, try recording with an amp set up in the room just for monitoring purposes. You can then record with any latency that works, and apply the amp-sim afterwards. The downside to this of course, is that the guitarist has to play to a different sound to the final version.. this might be problematic with certain styles.

[valley]

its like a subtle slapback delay. very quick, but it's there. and it has thrown me off when i was trying the system out. i have been recording and mixing with it, but im afraid to have anybody do any overdubs for fear that they'll freak out and want me to fix it, and me not be able to... you know?

That *definitely* sounds like teh live signal is being merged with the post Tracktion signal somewhere.

Look for zero-latency monitoring options for your audio device and disable it.

[.jon]

[edit: you guys are fast!]

I think the source of latency is the VST amp sim, on the PT LE system you possibly used RTAS plugins that operate on the DSP chips, making latency negotiable?

I also tend to agree with haydxn, 6 ms might not be the true latency you're experiencing, but that surely doesn't help much Anyway, have you tried to lower the buffer rate- can you push the latency down without problems?

I haven't tried overdubbing with VST effects, but without them percussion & vocals work well, even though I monitor through the soundcard.

[lharless]

to correct my last post. i can't hear the affect when mixing, because its only coming OUT of tracktion. but when recording, it is noticeable. to clear that up..

the tester program sounds nice. ive heard that there is very little difference in usb and firewire, only tat usb sometimes cuts out with continuous streaming of data. is this correct?

god i feel like such an idiot today.

you guys are giving me some great ideas. if anyone has any input, please don't hesitate to post. and thanks for the dudes that have already.

ill get back to this tomorrow. when i have everything hooked back up.

[semiquaver]

monitoring through the computer is a no no. Most audio cards will split off a direct signal from the input and allow you to mix it with the DAW's outputs for just this reason. Otherwise you should use a mixer to split the signal. I find that even very small delays in headphones can totally screw me up when I am trying to perform. Even a few ms create phase defferences with the sound in your head!

As a bonus you can then increase your buffer sizes and have easy sailing.

[IIRs]

you should use a mixer to split the signal.

He's using an amp sim.. pay attention!

[Lunch Money]

I monitor live through Tracktion using an amp sim all the time. I'd better change my technique now that I see it's a 'no no'.

Joking aside, semiquaver raises a point-- when monitoring an effected signal, there will always be added latency. I find that what I need to do is strip my signal down to only the bare necessities and/or light versions (instead of a complex reverb, I track with a simple reverb and then swap out for a complex one later, for example).

The more complex your signal path, the more likely you are to experience the delay. Or, to agree with pakana, your hardware might be set up fine and you'll still get latency for other reasons.

Greg

[lharless]

i monitor through the onyx into two alesis m1a mkii. sometimes, ill mix out of the laptop straight from the audio card into the monitors if i want to sit in the living room of the house and do rough mixes, but i usually only do this for levels. all else is done through the onyx mixer into the monitors.

the amp sim i use is amplitube. its a cpu hog. the only other plugs i use are eq's, dynamics type, and verbs. i don't go much further than that at any point. and i don't do midi.

i really think that this is something simple. with your help ill be able to figure it out.

im going into the shop early today so i can get the repair room in order and set some guitars up for the floor, ill talk to you all later this evening as the sales floor winds down. adios!