Latency Trouble

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drummernick

Post by drummernick » Sun Mar 07, 2004 7:56 pm

Hey I'm just starting out with Cakewalk 2004 XL and I'm really really confused... When recording through mics with the speakers on, there is a latency problem. The first time it is fine, since it is usually the drums. The larger problem comes in when I try to record a guitar or bass part over the drums because if the speakers are not turned off, you can't hear the drums, and if they are turned on, the latency is so bad that i can't even tell what i'm play or when to play it. Please give me some pointers!! Thanks so much


Bluesmiester

Post by Bluesmiester » Mon Aug 16, 2004 7:24 pm

Ok ... this may go alittle long but ....

Welcome to latency 1A ... the basics

Latency is the delay between the time you record a sound and the time you hear it back via your monitoring setup.

The cure is to not try to monitor through your system unless your hardware/software is up to the task.

I used to run Home Studio XL ( the version previous to 2004XL ).
If you sound card and your software supports ASIO I suggest you give that a try. I did that by upgrading to Sonar 3 and it solved the problem perfectly.

But if you software doesn't support ASIO ( My HS XL did not but I think the new version does ) or your sound card does not support ASIO then there is a hardware solution to get around this.

Use a small mixer to do your routing. You send in a bus that has only the signal that you wish to record to the sound card line in.

Using the mixer you combine the backing tracks you are trying play along with and the current signal you are trying to record. That way you can monitor in real time without any latency at all. Any decent quailty mixer will do and I have seen at least two that can do the job for less that $100 USD.

Yes you will need some extra patch calbes and amybe a few adapters but that very low $$$. I used this approach for years when neither my software or hardware was up to the job.

One last thing ... get some headphones ... that will also solve any bleeding problems that you might have when multitacking.

I hope this helps .... Bluesmiester

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