Audacity Forum

That delay is caused by "software playthrough" which you have selected in "Edit > Preferences > Audio I/O" Because your recording and playback devices are physically independent, it requires the software ...

... of this digital noise introduction but I don't. Audacity 1.3.5beta is able to get rid of the digital background mess introduced but the attack and delay and db settings at best give me a fuzzy woosh sound in and out of the music tones. This recording example is using an old Casio keyboard. If the ...

Software playthrough will always give a noticeable delay. If you are recording with a conventional PCI or on-board sound card, it is usually possible to set the WINDOWS MIXER so that it will play both the audio playback from Audacity and the audio ...

... and I'm sure that's why I have latency in the playback... Spot on. Software playthrough is much slower than hardware playthrough, hence the delay. If I uncheck it and just use hardware playthrough, I get no signal at all out of my headphones...... is the answer an external mixer? Do you ...

... and a Dell, with SB Live 16 stock souncard.... I can record fine, no problems.... the headphone output from the sound card contains a substantial delay....I have played with all the latency correction and buffer settings to no avail.... I have software playthrough checked, and I'm sure that's ...

... hearing an additional echo of the incoming sound then it's probably that you're hearing the signal from the soundcard and then, with a slight delay, the same signal via software. Check that the option Edit-Preferences-Audio IO-Software Playthrough is not ticked. This option is there for older ...

... (Software Playthrough). This is probably the problem - it means you're monitoring the incoming recording via your hardware and then, with a slight delay, the same signal via software. The Software Playback option is there for older or low spec audio devices that don't allow simultaneous monitoring ...

... this, which is what Audacity includes the "Software Playthrough" option (which suffers from an unavoidable but never the less irritating delay). Having said that, there are many benefits to using a little mixer, including the fact that you can use a better microphone, mix in music live ...

... the speakers instead. However, all other audio comes fine through the headphones. Totally agree about the Software Playthrough. WAY too much delay. My other option would be to just use the laptop for Cubase, and use a Yamaha MW USB mixer for I/O, monitoring, etc instead of using the built-in ...

... Also, on a PC it is not possible to monitor the input other than selecting "Software Playthrough" which has a significant amount of delay. Monitoring of the input should be done directly from the mixing desk, or using an alternative output device (such as the PC onboard audio device). ...