Reaper 5?

[Hank the Knife]

@aciddose
I accentuated that part of your comment. Because I think it's most important to keep in mind that some people do actually still record real instruments! This whole DJ thing will soon pass; it's too funny for words from a musician's point of view. I guess people don't wanna be boreth to death til the end of times

[EnGee]

So, does that mean Reaper is not suitable for live recording? Like recording a concert? Multi tracks simultaneously?

[Hank the Knife]

@EnGee
I don't know; that's what I try to figure out. I am not a technician. Takes a lot of effort for me to dive into music production. After a year I still feel awkward about all the technical details. Sometimes at the point of desperation.

[EvilDragon]

Yet lots of people are using Reaper to track live recordings with dozens of channels, without a hitch...

[Tonberry]

Throw him a bone ED, is there solution to his problem or does that mean that what automatically works for others doesn't work for him somehow?

[EvilDragon]

No, from my understanding (and reading on Cockos forums), lots of people just go out and record their live gigs with Reaper without worrying about that latency compensation at all.

[aciddose]

I think Reaper works great for live recording. The timing issues I'm talking about are equal to multiples (plus the additional timing considerations mentioned by kbaccki) of the ASIO or whatever interface latency which are generally quite small.

If you get the latency below 5ms, you're probably not going to notice this although in my opinion it does heavily influence your playing, use real monitoring then and adjust the recorded clip afterward. This makes perfect sense and is I believe why Reaper was designed this way lacking the monitoring functionality. (When playing live, use your monitor channels outside the DAW, using the DAW to monitor is a bit odd.)

The issues happen when you're doing multi-tracking with instruments like synthesizers or drums and drum-synths. Here, that 5ms out-of-phase comb filtered effect is definitely audible because it isn't a minor timing issue that affects your playing, it actually applies a comb filter to the sounds you're working with!

It is worst with drums as I mentioned because you can hear the fact the two sounds occur slightly offset from each other.

http://xhip.net/temp/timing.wav

This was recorded in the latest Reaper version on my system. Latency is accounted for perfectly in the Reaper settings and once you actually record the track it lines up correctly. In this recording however I recorded the live mixture of the monitor input and the plugin output, in other words this is what I get live to my speakers.

The first pulse is a plugin, the second is from an analog synthesizer.

My buffer setting is 256 samples. There are a total 684 samples however meaning even if the hardware/driver has "double buffering" 172 additional samples latency show up from somewhere. This is possibly the drivers, possibly the hardware, ultimately it doesn't really matter. It can be accounted for after recording, but Reaper doesn't provide any method to account for it while monitoring.

(Note: output latency doesn't matter because it doesn't even enter into the equation here.)

There will always be some additional latency of about 1ms due to MIDI latency combined with any latency on the receiving end which depends upon the hardware being used. I know the latency on the receiving end is 1ms because I designed and built it myself, wrote the code on the MIDI chip and so on.

So we have the basic MIDI note-on latency (three bytes at 3125bps = 960us) plus the internal worst-case 1ms latency for a total of ~2ms. This is 96 samples accounted for leaving 76 due to some other source, possibly the PC hardware, Windows, who knows.

If that was the only remaining latency and I could adjust that in Reaper I would be entirely happy.

The problem is Reaper doesn't even handle the basic input latency while monitoring, so forget about adjusting it for other sources.

[EvilDragon]

Did you ever try contact Justin directly, rather than posting on forum? Just curious. It is known that that method worked sometimes

Especially if you provide ample info.

[aciddose]

No, I have no idea how I'd contact him directly.

Also, to be honest I just assumed even to attempt that would be stupid, as if he wanted to hear my complaints they might have a bug-tracker or similar system set up. If they do it will surprise me, I've looked numerous times and never found one.

There is really no information to offer other than simply: Reaper doesn't account for input latency while monitoring with regard to the latency compensation total applied to calculate delay times for alignment of tracks while mixing.

There is nothing else to it. It's extremely simple.

[Hank the Knife]

Hmm.. maybe I am misunderstanding, but what I understand of it is that recording is ok, but monitoring isn't. As it comes to 'play along'. So basically the 'play along' process doesn't keep track the same way as the 'record/comping' process (the moment when one does hit 'record' that is). Well, I think that's a drag. Because, AFAIAC 'play along' is a different process than 'comping'. I just want to play along BEFORE recording/comping. That's just me. I just like to fiddle around for a while without any obligations before recording.

[aciddose]

Well in the case of playing live (with a keyboard or otherwise, not a sequencer) you actually might not want latency compensation of the monitoring input. (At least it should be optional with a on/off switch and manual adjustment.)

In my recording above, I showed the input latency appears to be 684 samples (14.25ms). So the solution is to delay every other track by 684 samples, as if there were a plugin inserted there.

So the exact system that already exists to handle plugin latency can handle this compensation, it just needs to take the input latency into account and use it to delay other tracks (plugins, etc) so they're lined up correctly with the monitored input.

You'd really notice this actually if you play live with an external synth at the same time as an internal synth from the same keyboard. You'll get the exact effect in my recording above where they'll be out of phase.

[Hank the Knife]

@aciddose
Thanks for your explanation. I still have to digest some things, but I think I've got a grasp of it by now

[EvilDragon]

No, I have no idea how I'd contact him directly.

http://www.askjf.com


Or, support at cockos dot com.

[EnGee]

@aciddose:
I found what you discover is very important really (not for me, but for many musicians and bands). Many are using a hybrid setup of computers and hardware synths ..etc in their live playing.

If Cubase can do it right, then there is no excuse why can't Reaper!

I suggest you post what you know their in Reaper's forum. I did have a small positive experience with Schwa when I reported some problem with VST3 in the beta forum and he fixed it after few days! He was very polite and nice person. I noticed also Justin was answering many and working hard there. Both were nice persons but practical of course. So, I say go ahead and I'm positive they'll listen to you carefully (maybe EvilDragon can bring attention to your post there as well, as he is an active member there).

[aciddose]

I don't think either is really an appropriate place but I posted this anyway. I didn't really want to because it seems like something I could research on my own and I wouldn't be surprised to be honest if the feature is included in there, hidden somewhere.

Question: Does Reaper provide an option to take into account input latency while monitoring and include this in the latency compensation to delay other tracks so they line up with the monitored input?
Asked by adlongername (70.66.148.x) on August 14 2015, 7:59am

"adlongername"

Anyway if it is in there, I sure can't find it and everyone I've asked (to be honest not too many, but at least in the tens) has no idea what I'm even talking about. I think this is the first time (this thread) I've bothered to go into such huge detail about it and why it's a problem.