Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by John W on November 10, 2010 at 10:40am

I would record in audacity first, then export as MP3, put it on an ipod, listen through headphones, and record the second track. Then line up the two tracks in Audacity (or whatever).

Permalink Reply by Norm Fasey on November 10, 2010 at 11:08am

Hi there. This is a common problem faced by people of their pc. The lag can be caused by a number if things. It most likely that it's the sound card. There are ways around this that range from using different drivers that can adjust the latency to using an external sound card that does not have this problem. For a more detailed explanation, have a read of this. http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=60465

Permalink Reply by Mark on November 10, 2010 at 11:29am

If it's a very slight out-of-sync shift between the two tracks it sounds like a latency problem. Basically, the hardware in your computer will always take a certain amount of time to convert a signal from audio into a digital file in your computer or vice versa. It's a very tiny amount of time but it can be significant - especially when you have a delay on the playback of the drum part added to the delay in converting the input from your guitar. (apologies if you already knew this bit but I thought I'd spell it out in case it's being read by others who don't know)

There's a couple of things you can try in Audacity to try to overcome the limitations of your hardware. Firstly, it has parameters that can be set to adjust for latency - they're in the recording preferences menu (find "preferences" in the "edit" menu, then select "recording" in the lefthand panel). You just have to play around with them to try to find values that work for your particular PC. Alternatively, you can use the "time shift" tool to sort of slide the out-of-sync track back into sync with the drum track.

These solutions should work as long as the time delay between the tracks is constant throughout. If the tracks are wandering in and out of sync then it's a much trickier problem.

The expensive way to overcome latency problems has tended to involve buying specialist input-output hardware - typically a souncard with an external module with multiple inputs and outputs. However, as consumer-market computers have got more powerful over the years, the built in hardware has got to the point where - with a few software tricks - it is often good enough to get by for simple amateur recording purposes.

Permalink Reply by Little Soul Eric on November 10, 2010 at 8:56pm

Thanks guys for the imput,
been on the net all last night trying to find out the problem even downloaded a latency program which checks your software and hardware and according to this software its my drivers on my W-LAN that may be the problem.
so when i get home tonight i`ll be up dateing my drivers for that and see how i go.
Just to let you know thou my sound card is a Sound Blaster live 5.1 and again according to the net this should be fine for recording purposes.
worst come to the worst i can always go back to my 4 track tape recorder (lol)

Permalink Reply by Mark on November 11, 2010 at 8:01am

That card ought to be up to the task (there are actually a number of different models of card which go under that name - all of them are supposed to be capable of doing what you need but some are better than others). I have heard of people having latency problems with these cards when using them for multi-track recording, but in general it sounds like the problems were fixed by updating the drivers for the card. The difficulty with this is that the Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 is now quite an old card and Creative aren't actively supporting it anymore so it might be difficult to get hold of new drivers.

Another potential problem to check is that you're recording with a sampling rate of 48kHz. This is significant because there's a limitation stemming from an internal design quirk of the card, which means it samples all incoming audio at 48kHz, even if the software is asking for something else. A lot of software will (at least if left at default settings) be asking for audio at different rates, typically 44.1kHz, which is the rate for CD sound. To accomodate this the card does some conversion calculations, but that can slow things down and compromise sound quality. To minimise the chance of trouble set Audacity (or whatever other package you're using) to use a sample rate of 48kHz.

The only thing that worries me about what you've said is the bit about updating drivers for your "W-LAN" because generally speaking that stands for Wireless LAN (aka. wi-fi) - which is something separate. Are you sure the "latency" program you downloaded wasn't bogus?



Soulcatcher & His DooFa Diddley said:

Thanks guys for the imput,
been on the net all last night trying to find out the problem even downloaded a latency program which checks your software and hardware and according to this software its my drivers on my W-LAN that may be the problem.
so when i get home tonight i`ll be up dateing my drivers for that and see how i go.
Just to let you know thou my sound card is a Sound Blaster live 5.1 and again according to the net this should be fine for recording purposes.
worst come to the worst i can always go back to my 4 track tape recorder (lol)

Permalink Reply by Little Soul Eric on November 11, 2010 at 8:49am

well ive updated what i can and still problems
that program Mark is DPC Latency Checker
mmm will go back n see what i can do
if nothing i`ll record the whole thing in one go


Mark aka. Junk Box Instruments said:

That card ought to be up to the task (there are actually a number of different models of card which go under that name - all of them are supposed to be capable of doing what you need but some are better than others). I have heard of people having latency problems with these cards when using them for multi-track recording, but in general it sounds like the problems were fixed by updating the drivers for the card. The difficulty with this is that the Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 is now quite an old card and Creative aren't actively supporting it anymore so it might be difficult to get hold of new drivers.

Another potential problem to check is that you're recording with a sampling rate of 48kHz. This is significant because there's a limitation stemming from an internal design quirk of the card, which means it samples all incoming audio at 48kHz, even if the software is asking for something else. A lot of software will (at least if left at default settings) be asking for audio at different rates, typically 44.1kHz, which is the rate for CD sound. To accomodate this the card does some conversion calculations, but that can slow things down and compromise sound quality. To minimise the chance of trouble set Audacity (or whatever other package you're using) to use a sample rate of 48kHz.

The only thing that worries me about what you've said is the bit about updating drivers for your "W-LAN" because generally speaking that stands for Wireless LAN (aka. wi-fi) - which is something separate. Are you sure the "latency" program you downloaded wasn't bogus?



Soulcatcher & His DooFa Diddley said:

Thanks guys for the imput,
been on the net all last night trying to find out the problem even downloaded a latency program which checks your software and hardware and according to this software its my drivers on my W-LAN that may be the problem.
so when i get home tonight i`ll be up dateing my drivers for that and see how i go.
Just to let you know thou my sound card is a Sound Blaster live 5.1 and again according to the net this should be fine for recording purposes.
worst come to the worst i can always go back to my 4 track tape recorder (lol)

Permalink Reply by Little Soul Eric on November 11, 2010 at 9:42am

Well after nearly pulling my hair out i finally found out what was up ...... it was Audacity 1.2.6
There was errors with the drivers so uninstalled and reinstalled.... so far so good.
so tomorrow i`ll start my xmas song...............all this effort and im not a good sing lol

Permalink Reply by Mark on November 11, 2010 at 10:16am

Curious to know what drivers you're referring to there. Sounds a bit premature to say the problem was the fault of Audacity as drivers are not part of it but are associated with various bits of hardware (and you said you had problems with other apps as well as Audacity). However it's good to know that uninstall and reinstall seems to have fixed the problem.

For info, Audacity has moved onto version 1.3 (I use 1.3.9 but I believe the latest beta release is around 1.3.12). But if you've got a working setup then it's a case of "if it ain't broke don't fix it".

Soulcatcher & His DooFa Diddley said:

Well after nearly pulling my hair out i finally found out what was up ...... it was Audacity 1.2.6
There was errors with the drivers so uninstalled and reinstalled.... so far so good.
so tomorrow i`ll start my xmas song...............all this effort and im not a good sing lol