dear sirs and madams

[Tim Brackett]

I sounds to me like you have zero latency monitoring turned on. I'm not familiar with your hardware but most interfaces these days have a zero latency monitoring option. What this does is to send your input signal back to an output without going through the converters. The signal of course is also passed through the converters and on to your application as well. If both signals are passed through to your monitors then the computer signal will be behind the the 0 latency signal by the amount of latency your system has. I don't believe that you have to double stated latency. 6ms latency should be the total round trip time and is not enough to notice. There is that much latency if you stand 6' away from your guitar amp but if it is being combined with 0 latency signal you will be able to hear that there are two signals with a delay. Since you are using an amp sim plugin for the guitar you want the guitar player to hear the effected signal so the 0 latency monitoring should be turned off. This is normally done from the drivers setup.
The way I would normally do these kinds of overdubs would be to overdub with a mic and amp. If I was going to use an amp sim I would monitor the guitar through an amp and track direct from the guitar with a DI box. This is were a hardware amp sim like a POD can come in handy. If I were using a POD I'd track both the direct guitar signal and the POD output. That leaves you the option of using the track from the POD, the direct signal through an amp sim, or both.

[lharless]

a very good idea. thanks.

now, to change the drivers setting. im using the mackie onyx 1640. i suppose that there is a setting somewhere i need to look into. but if i remember correctly, there are only the sample rate and latency (#of mili secs and such) for this driver gui.

i may be missing something. please advise.

i will do a thorough test tomorrow, and dig deeper into the settings and what not, to try to get a more formal set of information for you guys to see.

i've only seen the windows driver or onyx driver rather. i havent seen anything that allows me to set the mixer or software to zero latency, that i remember. is that at the initial set up of the drivers or something, like at the installation of the drivers? at that point? or is this something that can be accessed from another place?

i feel so stupid now. wow! i'll be freakin golden once i get this sorted out.

do you guys think that with my system that i should be able to do overdubs with a negligent amount of latency at some point, after i get all ofhte settings right? or will i have to live with this forever? im starting to worry about this actually. i miss my near zero latency with my amp sims. i really hope this kick butt program can do the same thing.

wheres a martian when you need him? I could use some advanced alien technology right about now.

if you don't mind, ill come back tomorrow with some more information for you, and maybe you could help me get this sorted out? if that's not asking too much.

thanks! youre all great!

[Lunch Money]

Zero latency monitoring is sometimes enabled directly from the hardware itself, not necessarily from the software. I don't know about the Onyx at all, but on the Tascam US-122 there's a simple switch to enable direct monitoring.

Greg

[semiquaver]

I will bet that 0-latecy monitoring is available. You would not access it from traction : you would get it from a switch on the hardware itself or a utility that configures it.

[jamesridge]

6 ms is about the same delay as standing 6 feet in front of your amp. I'd be willing to bet 6 ms is the latency for your onyx and the additional delay is caused by the amp sim plugin; and resulting vst delay compensation. A lot of those types of plugins (I assume convolution based) require a very large working buffer.

If this is the case, your only option is to try different amp sims to find the one with the lowest latency.

Jay

[lharless]

maybe i could use my onyx for venues and my ua-122 for overdubs. good idea. or seed for an idea.

i bought both of those units, funny you should mention the us-122. i have yet to use it though. its still in the box.

i don't think ill be using it unless i have to though. kind of bought it just to have a two input thingy if i needed it for open mic nights or something. charge for a cd of their set, right after the show, mildly treated.

for 20 bucks a pop. i heard of it before. it's a good idea. the us-122 would be great for such a job.

[lharless]

boomp.

[bewing77]

6 ms is very noticable to me atleast (when playing guitar). But with practice it is manageable. But for someone who has not played through software before it is a big deal. No idea how to remedy it though, except maybe get a cheap external amp-sim box (behringer?) for monitoring while recording a clean signal.

[semiquaver]

Hi Lee -

Here's is what I would do: put the output of your soundcard and the line outs on the onyx into a line mixer and monitor the mixer.

There are (imo) superior options to the onyx which provide the mixer functionality on-board: have a look at the metric halo Mobile I/O: www.mhlabs.com - the quality is coincidentally excellent and it is bus-powerable.

[valley]

Lee, what is the lowest latency you can run stably at?

If you can hit 3ms, and you can disable zero-latency, you should be fine.

[jamesridge]

Guys, if he's fine monitoring w/o the amp sim plugin this can't be a hardware latency issue. It has to be a plugin latency problem. Am I smokin crack here, yes/no?

[semiquaver]

right James - of course.

[lharless]

Hi Lee -

Here's is what I would do: put the output of your soundcard and the line outs on the onyx into a line mixer and monitor the mixer.

There are (imo) superior options to the onyx which provide the mixer functionality on-board: have a look at the metric halo Mobile I/O: www.mhlabs.com - the quality is coincidentally excellent and it is bus-powerable.

well, i already have the onyx, and its my live mixer, so im kinda stuck. but i feel this will work out. i didnt get to run tests today. i forgot i had to go into a roland training seminar today, on my day off. ..sigh..

but i will get to it i the coming days. i hope you guys are still willing to help me out on this by then. i thank you for doing what you have this far. i have a few ideas and i'll look into them.

another question i had: if im to change the zero latency setting on the onyx, where do i go to find this option? theres nowhere on the mixer to set this option. is it in the initial setup of the driver? or is it in the tracktion software? i think somebody said something about it NOT being in tracktion earlier..if so please ignore that part of the question.

my interpretation of your responses is: i will have to record the bands as i normally do, but when it comes to overdubbing, i will have to mic an amp and record that way instead of doing the amp sim. i understand that. and that has me worried. i don't think i want to work that way. i usually have my clients do thickening tracks with an amp sim because i don't have a studio space or the neighbors that would put up with the hours of tracking. i do alot of the level setting at the shop thru cans, then dynamics, eq, verbs and more level setting through monitors at my specially built mixing area at home.

then the final mix is done either in a treated room at the shop (a lesson room) or at home through monitors. and i run everything through wavelab4 with some very very minor tweaks, level setting of the overall cd tracks as a whole project and we're off to the races.

i don't really have the place to track with an amp.

so im going to have to have a system that can handle tracking with amp sims. and i hate that i gave up my pt le rig at this point because it seems that i have given up something that i really need for something easier to use, but not quite what i need.

i may have made an error in my research. but the documentation says almost zero latency. so that's what i based my research on.

please don't take me wrong. i love this software, and i think it's the best thing to come along since i used cakewalk back in the early 90's. but i miss that absolutely no latency that i had with my rtas plugs..

i wonder if ill ever be able to get this system at least somewhat like the pt le rig. it's certainly laid out better than pt le ever was. and i like my hardware interface/mixer.

dang it... im having a delimma. any ideas? am i smoking crack? i feel like it.

i don't want to have to change my setup again. its been very stressful to have to change into this system, and then end up not being able to do certain simple things that i used to be able to do.

but i may have missed something essential that could change it all in one fell swoop. and im holding out for an epiphany.

please dear lord, i pray to thee, let this system work. im a good boy...

[lharless]

Lee, what is the lowest latency you can run stably at?

If you can hit 3ms, and you can disable zero-latency, you should be fine.

ill have a closer look when i get it all set up and running again, so that i can do all of these things that are being mentioned and get deeper into the settings.



i guess i need to do an auto detect when i get the mixer hooked up. i have to change this wheni use the headphones while im at work, because im no longer monitoring through the same system, but out of the headphone jack on the back of the lappy.

istead of using the 4pin firewire input on the lappy, should i opt for a cardbus 6pin firewire card. would that cut down on some of the latency? im ordering one soon. i've been told that that could be a problem. going from 6pins on the onyx card to 4pins on my lappy. im gonna try the 6pin onyx to 6pin cardbus firewire adapter, and see what that brings. maybe some performance boost? anyone? and my hard drive... it's 7200 rpm 120 gig iomega usb/firewire. how should i use this drive? usb or firewire? should i daisy chain it from the onys to the cardbus i/o or to the 4 pin firewire input on the lappy while recording with the onyx going to the 6pin cardbus adapter? or use usb to record onto the hard drive while using the cardbus firewire for the onyx?

im nowhere smart enough to figure out hte best methods of doing this. but once i learn, i can use that knowledge forever. and then ill know.

but this is just perplexing to me. and i dont have enough hours in the day to read all about things like that. BAH!!!! HELP!!!

[Lunch Money]

You're right about one thing-- you can't disable zero-latency monitoring in Tracktion. If it's not on the Onyx hardware, it'll be in the Onyx software control panel. Check the manual.

I record guitars almost exclusively, and I've recorded 4 other guitarists. My latency is set at 8ms and nobody has had a problem tracking in realtime through amp sims. Trust me, it's possible to do. We just need to get you there.

Greg