Tricky latency fact...

inakiesarte · Post by **inakiesarte** » Sun Feb 01, 2009 11:38 pm

Hi there!!!

Im pretty new to Ableton and I had dj for a bit aswell. My setup at home is a pioneer djm 400 and two technics sl 1200. My soundcard is the maya 44 usb and the way my setup is connected:

The ouput for my mixer goes to the souncard
The output of my soundcard goes to the speakers
My souncard, obviously is connected to my computer

Well, if my mixer is just outputting sound to my speakers, there is no any kind of latency, but if the sound goes trough the souncard here is where the latency appears, making much more difficult to mix or beat match or record my stuff properly.

Is this something I can do to get the same output velocity trough my souncard as if the sound was coming straight away from my speakers?
Is my setup wrong routed?
Is my output from the mixer well connected as an "external instrument" into Ableton in a sepparate channel, to record my mix up?

Hope I had been clear enough,

Thanks!

Bunky Freaks · Post by **Bunky Freaks** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 2:50 am

i am not familiar with your sound card model, but most cards have an option to route an input signal directly to an output.
This is called "direct monitoring" and allows for latency free monitoring of the input signals.

If you need to route the input of your dj mixer through Live (to add effects etc) there will always be latency, which is directly related to your sound cards buffersize plus latency added by plugins.

If you only want to record your dj mix into ableton search the manual of your sound card for the direct monitoring setup.
Then you can still record your mix into Live, just set "Monitor" to "Off".
Else you will hear both the direct signal and the delayed one.

Also you don't necessarily need the "external instruments" plugin for this.
Just choose your soundcards inputs in the "audio from" field in an audio track.

inakiesarte · Post by **inakiesarte** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 10:39 am

Cool, I went trough my manual and seems to be that the option for direct monitoring is plugging in the "Optical Out and Headphones" to my speakers, intead of the "analog out" to my speakers, but then, I am not sure if the signal still will come trough the computer as it used to do before, or I will also have to plug my analog out to my speakers...

I will have a try and let you know,

Thanks for the help!

chrysalis33rpm · Post by **chrysalis33rpm** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 11:20 am

Also, I'd think about reversing the order of things- ie, going soundcard to mixer to speakers, and sending 2 separate stereo outs back to Ableton- one for recording your final mix (from the booth output on your mixer) and one for an FX loop (from FX send). This way Ableton does not get involved when all you want to do is throw on a record, but only when you actually are processing the signal somehow.