some help about recording voice in FL with better results?

[origami]

The thing is when i started using FL 2 years ago, I used a very low latency (5ms) but after months of recording I had problems (cracklings when recording) and had to increase the latency to 11ms.

Now my question for those who record your voices into FL, well I have some questions:

1. what's your latency set when recording voice? is 11ms acceptable? should I even increase it?

2. imagine that, in order to reduce CPU, I decide to render the whole instrumental song into wav, open it up into a new empty project and record voice there. Obviously cpu usage lowers dramatically. Is this good for recording? I mean, will I expect better recording situation by doing this? I've had crackling issues in the past when recording voice into cpu intgensive projects and want to put a stop to that.

thanks

[james0tucson]

The question is meaningless unless you tell us about your system; particularly the sound card you are using.

[origami]

what question, 1 or 2?

well my PC is a Pentium 4 2.4Ghz
soundcard: Terratec DMX 6 Fire

[james0tucson]

what question, 1 or 2?

well my PC is a Pentium 4 2.4Ghz
soundcard: Terratec DMX 6 Fire

11ms is pretty good, but enough that I'd require some kind of direct monitoring. More than that, and I'd have a real problem.

As for #2, you could freeze some tracks, record your audio, and then go back to instruments and work with that.

Audio playback takes practically no cpu resources. Recording audio shouldn't take very much -- the big problem here is disk IO, and maybe DMA. Do you have 32bit disk access and DMA turned on your disks?

[Hink]

what question, 1 or 2?

well my PC is a Pentium 4 2.4Ghz
soundcard: Terratec DMX 6 Fire

hi Origami, tell me about this bus mix feature on the soundcard....I'm thinkin you may have a similar monitor system to the fire pod. Which unless you want to monitor your vocals through a vst, you can have zero latency...

[origami]

james, I don't know what IO or DMA is...
Hink, I don't know what fire pod is...

sorry for my ignorance boys, may be a question of language though...

Well, as I tell you, with 11ms I usually have no problems; just when songs use much too cpu. I think I'll render to wav more.
thx

[Hink]

can you point me to a pdf of the manual for your card?

[origami]

Hink, there isn't a pdf manual, but there's a quite complete analysis here:
http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/terratecdmx6fire/

[Hink]

damn it doesn't look like it has a direct monitor...broken down, direct monitor is taking the signal at the input (your mic) and mixing it with an output bus of you pc...but, and this is a big but (how big is it? ), it does not mix the output with the input when the input signal heads to your app.

The latency occurs because of the time it takes for the input signal to make it's way through fl. But the output is in realtime. So if you can mix the output with the input to monitor, but only record the input you hear both mixed together in real time...latency doesn't effect the timing of the recording, it just slows it down after...many cards are set up this way now, though I think one of the first was the digi-001. It's quite similar to how a multi-track hard disk recorder works.

Do you by chance have a mixer, it would need 4 busses or perhaps regular outputs and "control room" outs.

If not then you're stuck with the latency your card permits...smart disable everything, make sure you're not running a lot of background apps and you could do well.

Perhaps if you really wanted you could render your project to a stereo mix (temp) start a new project and import the mix to fl, then record your vocals there...that way you're freeing up as much cpu as possible, allowing a smaller buffer....as long as you keep tempos right and such, putting the vox back to the original flp should be a snap...pun intended....

[origami]

Perhaps if you really wanted you could render your project to a stereo mix (temp) start a new project and import the mix to fl, then record your vocals there...that way you're freeing up as much cpu as possible, allowing a smaller buffer....as long as you keep tempos right and such, putting the vox back to the original flp should be a snap...pun intended

THAT's is exactly what I think I'm going to do from now onwards. I may even lower the latency to less than 11ms, but at least cpu usage won't interfere with voice recording I guess.

[MrForum]

what question, 1 or 2?

well my PC is a Pentium 4 2.4Ghz
soundcard: Terratec DMX 6 Fire

hi Origami, tell me about this bus mix feature on the soundcard....I'm thinkin you may have a similar monitor system to the fire pod. Which unless you want to monitor your vocals through a vst, you can have zero latency...

Technically, zero latency doesnt exist, and it is physically impossible, (nothing happens in zero time indeed), what we can have is a near zero latency... I use Fl with 20ms., and 10ms., it sounds ok to me., i think latencies less than 10ms are good but not necessary in most cases.
I have a athlon 1200., sblive and kx., and i can use fl with latencies down to 2ms., but if cpu use goes beyond 50% or 60% it sounds clicky.

Regards

[Hink]

[origami]

thanks to you too, MrForum. But do you record voice in FL? if so, what's your latency then?

[MrForum]

thanks to you too, MrForum. But do you record voice in FL? if so, what's your latency then?

My latency goes down to 2.66ms, when recording audio and playing a song., and both things at same time., well., it says its 2.66ms., i didnt measure it, i trust kx asio =P'

But., when cpu goes beyond 60% i have underrunds., but., that's not bad.., cause my cpu is an athlon 1200,256ram pc133 and cannot handle a lot of effects or instruments., but the fact is that with low cpu usage., i can use asio with 2.66ms., i have a sound blaste live value.

As i said, for a safe operation and avoid underrunds, i use 20ms to make my songs & record from my midi keyboard., but when it comes to voice recording i use another app, i mean., i open 2 apps., fl & audio recorder., i play the song in fl., with 20ms., and I record my voice with the other app., doing this i achieve 20ms in FL, but in the other app i record using "Primary Sound Driver", when i finish my voice recording, i import it to fl as an audio track.

I like voice very syncronized with music, i even split my voice in separated words and make them fit at exactly music tempo.

PD: In my last post i tried to explain that "zero latency" is really a "near zero latency".

[Hink]

thanks to you too, MrForum. But do you record voice in FL? if so, what's your latency then?

My latency goes down to 2.66ms, when recording audio and playing a song., and both things at same time., well., it says its 2.66ms., i didnt measure it, i trust kx asio =P'

But., when cpu goes beyond 60% i have underrunds., but., that's not bad.., cause my cpu is an athlon 1200,256ram pc133 and cannot handle a lot of effects or instruments., but the fact is that with low cpu usage., i can use asio with 2.66ms., i have a sound blaste live value.

As i said, for a safe operation and avoid underrunds, i use 20ms to make my songs & record from my midi keyboard., but when it comes to voice recording i use another app, i mean., i open 2 apps., fl & audio recorder., i play the song in fl., with 20ms., and I record my voice with the other app., doing this i achieve 20ms in FL, but in the other app i record using "Primary Sound Driver", when i finish my voice recording, i import it to fl as an audio track.

I like voice very syncronized with music, i even split my voice in separated words and make them fit at exactly music tempo.

PD: In my last post i tried to explain that "zero latency" is really a "near zero latency".

Hi Mrforum, and welcome to kvr...you still didn't explain the comment that there is no zero latency...and you're right, through a soundcard there isn't, but with direct monitor there sure is...but for a while (until I gave my mixer to my son) I used this method on vocals



at first the benefit was being able to momitor my vox with effects but recording dry...however I realised that monitoring with effects didn't help my vox, but was quite misleading...now I just use the direct monitor on my card...but if you look the picture over you will see the logic and why this is zero latency (within reason...maybe 1/100th of a millisecond )