cubase record latency - advice requested

[ugo]

hi folks,

im having recording latency issues and i'd like some advice. the problem is that it sounds fine when im playing my bass, but when i playback a recording everything is offset way too early.

while looking to tweak something else, i just stumbled into some settings that, after reading the help info on them, look like they might fix the problem. one is to turn off the 'adjust for record latency' setting. the other is the 'record placement offset' feature.

i tried turning off the adjust for record latency and it definitely made a huge difference. my recordings now seem to sound as they should. i havent tried the record placement offset yet because i dont know what i should be setting it to.

which is the best one to use for this situation and what potential drawbacks am i likely to run into by using either of these. will i be screwing up the timing of something else?

if i should use the record placement offset instead of turning off the adjust for record latency, how should i determine what to set it to?

btw...the good news in all this is that i now know that my bass playing timing isnt nearly as bad as i feared it was. i know im out of practice, but i have been shocked and discourraged to hear how far ahead of the beat my recordings were. i thought i sounded ok when i was playing, but they recordings were really far off. on one hand, something told me that they couldnt be right. on the other hand, i thought...the recording cant lie, can it? thankfully, i have now discovered they that can lie! i was afraid i was suffering from a severe case of WBTD - White Boy Timing Disorder. when i heard the results of recording after turning off the adjust for record latency, i felt quite a feeling of relief.

it looks as though, and i guess this makes sense, this may also have been the cause of my midi recording timing issue too. i was always going back into the piano roll and fixing my notes because the quantize kept pushing nearly everything a 16th too early. (my quantize is usually set at 16ths.) since im a terrible keyboard player, i just figured my timing on keys was really that bad, that the quantize thought i was closer to a 16th early than on the beat. but i just tried doing some midi recording with the adjust off and this time everything was perfectly in place.

so it looks like this little discovery may have just made my midi recording life a bit easier, improved my bass recordings, and aleviated fears of the state of my rhythmic well being. but...will leaving that adjust for recording latency off screw up anything else? would it be better to use record placement offset instead? (and if so, how best to find out what to set it to?)

thanks,
-ugo

[bduffy]

Ugo - what's your setup? What driver are you using?

I'd say if the "adjust for record latency" works, then leave it. It's only going to offset the recorded wave files, and you can always adjust that after the fact. I've had some situations where things recorded offtime like that, and what I did was use the Track Delay offset (third down in the Track Inspector) to manually delay the track to start later/earlier. Same thing as the global setting, just another way of doing it.

You can also try moving the "ignoreportfilter" file, that solves timing problems for some people. Check this thread:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... portfilter

Hope you get it sorted out. I do wish Cubase would get its act together with timing/latency. It's amazing when it works, but it's so fragile. It's embarassing!

[ugo]

Ugo - what's your setup? What driver are you using?

here's what i've got:
echo layla (old 20 bit version)
echo ASIO WDM drivers (i'd set it to purewave, but SE wont accept that.)
amd 1.6ghz
1.5 gigs of ram
cubase SL3.1
win XP

I'd say if the "adjust for record latency" works, then leave it. It's only going to offset the recorded wave files, and you can always adjust that after the fact.

ok, cool.
so that shouldnt effect anything during mixdown/export or with plugins, just the recording of incoming audio?

if that feature doesnt effect audio output or midi, then it looks like i fell prey to a self induced 'hey all my timing's fixed' placebo effect when i thought my midi recording timing improved too.

You can also try moving the "ignoreportfilter" file, that solves timing problems for some people. Check this thread:

interesting. i'll try that too.

thanks for the help.
-ugo

[Improv]

echo layla (old 20 bit version)
echo ASIO WDM drivers (i'd set it to purewave, but SE wont accept that.)

Does that card do straight ASIO? If so try it as you should reduce overall latency. (Unless of course you have a specific reason for using WDM drivers?)

[bduffy]

Ugo - what's your setup? What driver are you using?

here's what i've got:
echo layla (old 20 bit version)
echo ASIO WDM drivers (i'd set it to purewave, but SE wont accept that.)
amd 1.6ghz
1.5 gigs of ram
cubase SL3.1
win XP

I'd say if the "adjust for record latency" works, then leave it. It's only going to offset the recorded wave files, and you can always adjust that after the fact.

ok, cool.
so that shouldnt effect anything during mixdown/export or with plugins, just the recording of incoming audio?

if that feature doesnt effect audio output or midi, then it looks like i fell prey to a self induced 'hey all my timing's fixed' placebo effect when i thought my midi recording timing improved too.

You can also try moving the "ignoreportfilter" file, that solves timing problems for some people. Check this thread:

interesting. i'll try that too.

thanks for the help.
-ugo

OK, first observations: You have on old Echo card. I'm sorry to hear that. I have experience with the first Echo MIA and an Echo Darla, and I found their ASIO drivers to be VERY unstable. I just got rid of the MIA after 2 years of frustration. I would say try another audio card if you have the opportunity. Or by something better!

Second, your computer is on the slow side for running Cubase 3 software. I can't imagine running SX 2 on my old machine, let alone SX 3! Might be time to upgrade.

So your timing imporved when you disabled the offset feature? huhn...I'm confused now. Like I said, I suspect your Echo card...

Gotta run! Later!

[ugo]

Does that card do straight ASIO?

not that i know of. the only driver seems to be a WDM.

OK, first observations: You have on old Echo card. I'm sorry to hear that. I have experience with the first Echo MIA and an Echo Darla, and I found their ASIO drivers to be VERY unstable.

unstable how? im curious to know to see of some of the other occasional frustrations i run into from time to time might be caused by the card/drivers. (and therefore might be eliminated by using something else.) i've essentially only had experiance with echo stuff. i had a darla for a short while before i got the layla and it's all i've used since. what audio card are you using now?

Second, your computer is on the slow side for running Cubase 3 software. I can't imagine running SX 2 on my old machine, let alone SX 3! Might be time to upgrade.

unfortunately this is not the best time for me to buy a new computer + audio card. but as much as i'd like a better setup, i cant afford it right now. i have to keep going with what i've got for the time being. when i do finally upgrade, i want to get something pretty nice, not have to settle for something towards the bottom of the curve again...so im going to have to save up some real cash. but at the moment, saving for my taxes has to take priority.

So your timing imporved when you disabled the offset feature? huhn...I'm confused now. Like I said, I suspect your Echo card...

go to devices/device setup/vst audiobay/expert, then check out the info in the help for that feature. the problem described in the help info sounds like what i've been experiancing with my bass recordings, so thats why i tried it. from what it was saying, i guess the problem is a combination of audio card latency issues and my instinctively trying to compensate for it while playing.

i havent recorded with my hardware synths in a long while, but they might have been fine the way things were because they would have been sequenced during recording. the extra factor of my trying to compensate while playing live wouldnt be there, so maybe they'd end up in the right place anyway at playback. i should test that out by sequcning a hardware synth, recording the audio, and see what the difference is between having that setting on or off. it did seem to help my bass playing recordings though.

-ugo

[bduffy]

unstable how? im curious to know to see of some of the other occasional frustrations i run into from time to time might be caused by the card/drivers. (and therefore might be eliminated by using something else.) i've essentially only had experiance with echo stuff. i had a darla for a short while before i got the layla and it's all i've used since. what audio card are you using now?

The worst problem I had was glitchy audio. I couldn't even get around to testing input latency half the time because I was trying to stabilize the hiccups enough to just MIX! I swear also with the MIA I had to nudge a lot of guitar/basslines back a bit to get them in time, or else, like you say, I was caught in that loop where you might be just compensating for the latency...or maybe not...

Second, your computer is on the slow side for running Cubase 3 software. I can't imagine running SX 2 on my old machine, let alone SX 3! Might be time to upgrade.

unfortunately this is not the best time for me to buy a new computer + audio card. but as much as i'd like a better setup, i cant afford it right now. i have to keep going with what i've got for the time being. when i do finally upgrade, i want to get something pretty nice, not have to settle for something towards the bottom of the curve again...so im going to have to save up some real cash. but at the moment, saving for my taxes has to take priority.

My god, say no more, man! I hear you. I've been holding back on so many things it hurts! Have to pay off a wedding, myself. No music-gear-fun for me.
Anyway, I'm using an E-MU 1212m now, which I love, except I'm experiencing a weird conflict somewhere, I have to tear my computer apart tomorrow. It's amazing what you get with the EMU cards for the price, and it sounds fantastic, I just have to fix this conflict.

So that sounds kind of silly, huh? But honestly, I first bought the MIA to replace an Audigy 1, which I never had any problems with, ran great, just wanted to get better A/D, etc. Well, the MIA glitched in my old computer, and it glitched in the new one. The Audigy worked fine, so I had to go back to that for a couple years. Now with the EMU, I decided to go back to Creative. It's a great card. I managed to talk my wife into splurging for it ($170) because the Echo card was just un-usable. And I can tell you this: even though I'm experiencing a weird latency issue (that others are not), I can load on the plugins till the cows come home and really push the CPU. And I swear it sounds better than the MIA, but that's very subjective/wishful thinking. Most people praise the sound highly.

go to devices/device setup/vst audiobay/expert, then check out the info in the help for that feature. the problem described in the help info sounds like what i've been experiancing with my bass recordings, so thats why i tried it. from what it was saying, i guess the problem is a combination of audio card latency issues and my instinctively trying to compensate for it while playing.

i havent recorded with my hardware synths in a long while, but they might have been fine the way things were because they would have been sequenced during recording. the extra factor of my trying to compensate while playing live wouldnt be there, so maybe they'd end up in the right place anyway at playback. i should test that out by sequcning a hardware synth, recording the audio, and see what the difference is between having that setting on or off. it did seem to help my bass playing recordings though.

-ugo

Have you tried the ASIO4ALL drivers instead? That's what I'm using with the Darla24 at work. It's not 100% stable with the Darla, but better performance than the crap-ass Echo drivers (ever had those sloppy installs where you have to force Device Manager to install the drivers?). I'm sure they're new cards are "great", "and shit", but the discontinued ones just don't work on the new systems anymore, I don't think. At least not for some.

So yeah, try the ASIO4ALL drivers, or you may have to look for conflicts or some deep BIOS-type-stuff, or of course, suffer like me until we can afford one of these...

Oh yeah: love your plug-ins, btw! I use them in quite a few tracks, very cool stuff indeed. Thanks for those.

[funkster1]

Cheers Ugo,
you could do worse then downloading the Audio- and MIDI Performance tests from the Steinberg FTP Server and see how your system performs/behaves.
All steps are very well explained in the test projects, also how the Expert Settings relate to Audio and MIDI timing/performance.

Hope this helps to get you sorted.

Regards and merry X-Mas
Raphael

[ugo]

The worst problem I had was glitchy audio. I couldn't even get around to testing input latency half the time because I was trying to stabilize the hiccups enough to just MIX!

wow, thankfully i dont have that problem. (didnt experiance that when the layla was on my old win98 box either.) most of the time, if im running into hiccup troubles its only because im pushing my cpu to the end of its resources, and freezing takes care of that.

many of the other occasional glitches i run into i have tracked down extraineous stuff in my computer getting in the way at inoportune times. (like another program checking for updates while im in the middle of recording) and i've been able to stop most of that from happening. (turn some things off, make sure i've done a cookie/spyware cleaning, etc.)

but i do sometimes run into total freezes...sometimes just cubase, sometimes cubase and the audio card, sometimes the whole computer. sometimes things run smoothly, sometimes i get lockups all the time. i've yet to figure out what causes those. of course some vst's are less stable for me than others, but there are also those mystery lockups and i still suspect that its other crap on my machine that is interfering with realtime audio operations and freaking everything out.

Have you tried the ASIO4ALL drivers instead? That's what I'm using with the Darla24 at work. It's not 100% stable with the Darla, but better performance than the crap-ass Echo drivers

no, i havent tried that yet. i'll give it a shot. are there any potential issues in installing it with the echo driver still on my machine, or am i safe to have them both installed and pick between one driver or the other in cubase?

(ever had those sloppy installs where you have to force Device Manager to install the drivers?).

actually, no. one the things i have appreciated about echo's stuff is that (on 2 cards and 2 computers) they have always installed fine for me.

but the discontinued ones just don't work on the new systems anymore, I don't think. At least not for some.

if nothing else, its clear that echo doesnt feel too confident about using them on new systems...the XP drivers never left the beta stage.

Oh yeah: love your plug-ins, btw! I use them in quite a few tracks, very cool stuff indeed. Thanks for those.

glad you dig them.

you could do worse then downloading the Audio- and MIDI Performance tests from the Steinberg FTP Server and see how your system performs/behaves.
All steps are very well explained in the test projects, also how the Expert Settings relate to Audio and MIDI timing/performance.

cool, thanks for the tip. i'll download it now.

Regards and merry X-Mas

thanks, merry x-mas to you too.

-ugo

[bduffy]

Hey Ugo. Well I guess my Echo experience isn't quite universal, eh? I do experience a lot of crashes at work, where the ASIO driver will just knock until unless I reboot. But hey; it is a PC after all! But you did notice that the XP drivers never got past beta, which just isn't a good sign. I think my Echo was particularily evil, a factory defect or something - but I find it fishy that I have a hard time at work and at home with the same company.

You can use the Echo and ASIO4ALL drivers at the same time, you can just pick either from the Devices dialogue.

Thanks for that tip, Funkster1 - I'm going to download those two, I forgot all about those!

Merry Xmas, fellow Cubasers!

[funkster1]

...Thanks for that tip, Funkster1 - I'm going to download those two, I forgot all about those!

Merry Xmas, fellow Cubasers!

You're welcome m8.
When I did the test myself a good while ago, I was pleasantly surprised at how good my supposedly "old" system (AMD 2200+, Gigabyte GA7-VRXP Ver.2, 1GB DDR PC266 RAM, 4 HDD's - each on it's own controller as Master since I have 2 additional ATA/RAID controllers on my mobo). I had to adjust for only 9 samples offset in the expert settings. Compared to some other test results I've seen on cubase.net this was really good. Also, there's a lot of confusion about the emulated vs. non-emulated MIDI ports. And then some mobo's clocks simply drift more then others, which often is like a lottery game, since you probably won't know until you tested it. Now I'm using a Delta 1010LT which used the "real" MIDI ports in SX, however my old card (ST Audio DSP24 Value+) had to use the emulated drivers + OS installed in "Standard PC" mode to insure correct MIDI timing and sync with external gear.

Btw Ugo, that is also something you could check out if "Standard PC" mode works better then "ACPI Uniprocessor". You'll find some explications HERE . Just remember that these are "general" advices, they don't necessarily translate to all systems. But you know that yourself I'm sure, since you must be quite familiar with the Windows basics as a VSTi programmer
And if you can't afford a second PC for "Music Only" purposes, I'd strongly advise you to install at least a "Dual Boot" system. You won't run into legal stuff by installing Windows 2 or 3 or more times on the same PC, as you can always use just one instance anyway. So you could have one ultra clean DAW partition, a second test system and a third system for internet, office and what want/need you.

Well, and if all these tips don't get you anywhere, I guess a new Audiocard is on order then? Fortunately there are a bunch of cards which have reached a very good reputation and quite a low price by now. Personally, I always stay behind technology at least 1 year, this way I can almost be certain that I buy stuff that simply works.

Hope you'll get it sorted

Regards
Raphael

[bduffy]

Good advice Raphael. Hey, can you do a dual-XP partition if you have only an OEM install of XP?

When you speak of the lottery of Mobos, do you (or anyone) know of motherboards that do not have any onboard audio/video/whatever? I'm sick and tired of having to disable or possibly fight with these ultra-background devices. And next time around, I don't want this to be an issue if I can help it.

Thanks

[Hink]

ugo, you have so much gear...do you have a 4 bus mixer (or a psuedo version of, like a mackie 1402)? When it comes to recording audio you can simply use a mixer to monito and send your bass to your pc. By running the audio out of your pc to the mixer combined with your bass on a stereo monitor bus, and sening another two busses (stereo) or one if you're running you bass mono to your pc input and shut off the monitoring of that signal off in your application you can say good bye to any latency.

Not too mention the fact that you get the benefit of monitoring your bass with fx and record it dry. This is basically how hardware digital muti-track recorders like the 1680 and such do it. My card has direct monitor which also does basically the same thing and that gives me zero latency when recording audio...

[Hink]

of course if you are using a pc amp sim all of the above is moot...which is half the reason I don't like the pc amp sims.

[funkster1]

...When you speak of the lottery of Mobos, do you (or anyone) know of motherboards that do not have any onboard audio/video/whatever? I'm sick and tired of having to disable or possibly fight with these ultra-background devices. And next time around, I don't want this to be an issue if I can help it.

Like I said bduffy,I'm always some time behind actual technology. But from what I've seen these days, almost ALL mobos do have most of the onboard stuff going like networkinterface, audio and a whole bunch of other stuff. If you really don't need or use the one or the other service/device, you can always disable it in the BIOS which is not such a big deal. You'll do it only once.
I'd say,try to stick with brand name stuff, your chances that the stuff is working will be a whole lot better IMHO. Of course they're not always perfect neither, but then they usually take much less time to fix stuff then.

As for your OEM version of Windows, does it come on it's separate CD-ROM with "Microsoft Windows" written on it? Or is it a simple recovery CD? If it's the latter, I'm afraid you're out of luck, if you have a real Windows Install CD then it should work. I do have a retail version,so I never had that problem

Regards
Raphael