hardware latency with recording into live

icedsushi · Post by **icedsushi** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 3:00 pm

This is the same point I have been making over & over in this thread. So I will say it a third time now (actually 4 times including Machinate's comment

). You shouldn't be software monitoring any external instruments you play in realtime while recording into Live.

You're going to hear yourself late and it will mess with your timing. Even if you try to compensate for it by playing early, there's too much guesswork and you're mentally fighting against the delay compensation.

During recording, keep those external tracks switched to monitor "OFF", listen to yourself directly outside the computer, and make sure your overall latency is set correctly with the loopback test. Then your track will be displayed EXACTLY where you played it along the timeline.

Like I said...no need to fix anything.

I don't know why delay compensation doesn't work in the AUTO or ON monitor positions, but it simply doesn't.

You ask why does Live do this? Good question. Like I said I don't know. But I would also like to know the technical reasons why compensation doesn't work in the other 2 monitor settings...even with something that's sequenced externally with midi. In this case there's no human element and it still doesn't work unless you turn the monitoring off.

milfbait · Post by **milfbait** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 7:04 pm

icedsushi wrote:This is the same point I have been making over & over in this thread. So I will say it a third time now (actually 4 times including Machinate's comment ). You shouldn't be software monitoring any external instruments you play in realtime while recording into Live.

You're going to hear yourself late and it will mess with your timing. Even if you try to compensate for it by playing early, there's too much guesswork and you're mentally fighting against the delay compensation.

During recording, keep those external tracks switched to monitor "OFF", listen to yourself directly outside the computer, and make sure your overall latency is set correctly with the loopback test. Then your track will be displayed EXACTLY where you played it along the timeline.

Like I said...no need to fix anything.

The thing is I don't hear myself playing late at all. My latency is 8ms, and it's totally undetectable when playing, it's only detectable upon playback, because Live doesn't record the audio when I played it, it plays it back later than I played it. If anything if it were trying to compensate, the tracks in the image I posted on the previous page would be early, not late.

There is a need to fix something, because if you look at the Tracktion screenshot, you will see it's right on the money. That means one of them is broken, and I don't think it's Tracktion. This IS a bug, no doubt about it.

I first noticed this problem when I was recording a buddy playing guitar, plugged in directly and ran through a software amp sim. It's not always practicle to monitor directly.

roby · Post by **roby** » Tue Oct 11, 2005 5:34 am

icedsushi wrote:This is the same point I have been making over & over in this thread. So I will say it a third time now (actually 4 times including Machinate's comment ). You shouldn't be software monitoring any external instruments you play in realtime while recording into Live.

You're going to hear yourself late and it will mess with your timing. Even if you try to compensate for it by playing early, there's too much guesswork and you're mentally fighting against the delay compensation.

During recording, keep those external tracks switched to monitor "OFF", listen to yourself directly outside the computer, and make sure your overall latency is set correctly with the loopback test. Then your track will be displayed EXACTLY where you played it along the timeline.

Like I said...no need to fix anything.

I don't know why delay compensation doesn't work in the AUTO or ON monitor positions, but it simply doesn't.

You ask why does Live do this? Good question. Like I said I don't know. But I would also like to know the technical reasons why compensation doesn't work in the other 2 monitor settings...even with something that's sequenced externally with midi. In this case there's no human element and it still doesn't work unless you turn the monitoring off.

Yes, you have repeated that comment many time

which leads me to believe that maybe i am not explaining myself well. i know the facts you are stating, and this hold true to all other recording software i have used in the past. i never, evr, ever monitor through software unless i need to jam with a specific VST effect to get the feel of what I'm going to do.

So the issue i'm having is NOT monitoring while recording, and has nothing to do with latency delays while playing in real time, and/or playing in time or getting messed by the delay so that things sound messed once recorded. My issue is once i recorded what i though was perfectly played, sounds delayed and when looking at the clip info, you can see the actual delay of an x amount of ms.
Resetting or deleteing my preference file, adjusting latency in the card, and then running the tutorial about overll latency always gives me comfortable results, and the adjusting i have to do is minimal. but when doing a real life recording session, things are more delayed than that test. ANd i do not have crappy audio interfaces, I own an M-audio 410 FW which is pretty good to me at least, but i also have an Echo Layla24 laptop, which i consider top of the line. I get the same issue with that one too...

I'm sure this is not a bug. Maybe i'm just not understanding or missing something. Maybe the way to test for overall latency should different and under different conditions. icedsushi, thank you for your replies dude. I would love to hear from Ableton on this too...

icedsushi · Post by **icedsushi** » Tue Oct 11, 2005 2:37 pm

milfbait wrote:Live doesn't record the audio when I played it, it plays it back later than I played it.

This IS a bug, no doubt about it.

It's not always practicle to monitor directly.

I think you have a good point here and I would like to hear from Ableton too the explanation why the AUTO and ON positions delay the recording.

Everyone try this & post results if you can: (roby, I catch your drift...also interested in your results too

)

Record something external twice. Make sure the timing is identical (relative to the click) in both passes. In the first pass switch the armed track to monitor OFF during the recording. In the second pass, switch to AUTO. The sound file recorded with the AUTO setting will be much later than the one in the OFF setting even though the timing going in was identical.

Interestingly, in the middle AUTO setting there is no software monitoring but the delay still happens when looking at the recorded file. As long as your overall latency is set correctly, the recording made in the OFF position will be the only one that appears exactly where it should be in relation to the click.

I tested it with my drum machine synced to midi clock. It's only .5ms late with the OFF setting. With AUTO it's around 40ms late. It should be the same amount late in both cases because there is no human (error or monitoring) element involved, but it's not.

Why is this? Abes?

nobbystylus · Post by **nobbystylus** » Tue Oct 11, 2005 7:14 pm

yes this is a shame, because it makes the potential of using Live's effects with an incoming signal (say a Mic) useless if you want to do live looping, or jamming, (ie : hitting record, speaking into Mic thru Lives Effects> playing back the loop immediately).. .. everything you record down via software monitoring is always late.... I don't know why there isn't a way of software monitorings latency being auto adjusted back into its correct place.. ..

roby · Post by **roby** » Tue Oct 11, 2005 8:47 pm

nobbystylus wrote:yes this is a shame, because it makes the potential of using Live's effects with an incoming signal (say a Mic) useless if you want to do live looping, or jamming, (ie : hitting record, speaking into Mic thru Lives Effects> playing back the loop immediately).. .. everything you record down via software monitoring is always late.... I don't know why there isn't a way of software monitorings latency being auto adjusted back into its correct place.. ..

there is, Cubase does

icedsushi · Post by **icedsushi** » Tue Oct 11, 2005 9:00 pm

Update

The problem/bug with track monitor setting affecting recording latency is confirmed here:

http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=26856

roby · Post by **roby** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 4:51 pm

yeah, tried the monitor on/off test. weird bug

icedsushi · Post by **icedsushi** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 5:23 pm

Is this a "bug" or a new option to have automatic compensation in the OFF position? I am trying to remember how it was in Live 4.

You had to manually compensate in 4 by your latency , no matter what, from what I can remember. Or just get your buffer size down to where it's barely noticeable.

They really need to state this montoring affecting latency thing in the manual though. It's too much wasted time and troubleshooting for us all to find it out for ourselves. Or worse yet, be unaware of the timing shifts that are happening between the 2 positions.

Post by **Alex** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 6:21 pm

Hi folks,

Is this a "bug" or a new option to have automatic compensation in the OFF position? I am trying to remember how it was in Live 4.

For audio it is exactly the same like it was in Live 4. It is not a bug. If the monitor switch is set to "Off" an audio recording from external in is compensated by the value of the overall latency (input latency + output latency + manually compensation value)
If the monitor switch is set to "In" or "Auto" the recording is not compensated.
So again, this should exactly behave as in Live 4.

Now it seems that several people want to this:
They want to record audio from an external source by monitoring the external source through Live.
As the signal is monitored through Live it cannot be compensated while listening to it but if you have small
latencies you can live with that during the recording. But even the monitored signal you hear during the
recording is not compensated you might want to have the finally recorded clip to be compensated.
So that as soon as you play that recorded clip it is compensated and therefore in sync.

In this thread http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=26856 I provided a workaround by using
two track to achieve this with the current behavior of Live. (just check the conversation between
nobbystylus and me). I also wrote that I will talk with my teammates about this issue.

MIDI tracks do not offer the "Off" monitoring input in Live 4. This is new in Live 5 and also here the the recording will be compensated when monitoring is set to "Off" but not when set to "In" or "Auto".
Unfortunately this compensation use also the overall latency value which is wrong because the audio input latency has no influence here.

So here is a bug: The compensation for a recording in a MIDI track from external input use a higher value as needed.

regards,
Alex

icedsushi · Post by **icedsushi** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 6:15 pm

Alex, you're the man.

So AUDIO timing is identical in the AUTO and IN positions w/both Live 4 and 5. OK cool, I follow you.

But, are you saying that MIDI timing externally recorded to clips for has changed in Live 5? In other words, now there is a bug where MIDI clips recorded with a midi controller in the AUTO and IN positions are now showing an additional latency equal to the output+soundcard latency (y and 1/2 of z, where x+y+z=overall latency) which was not present in Live 4? In other words we are experiencing the overall (total) latency on input midi notes when we should only be experiencing the input latency?

Is this correct?

I'm a little confused about theory stuff but I think I'm pretty close. What should the latency be when playing soft synths with a midi controller? I always thought it was equal to the software input latency (first number in overall latency) plus any "midi" latency (the time you hit the key until the midi signal initially hits the software).