Hi, I’ve just started using Audacity and I’m having problems with latency. I’m trying to record a live mixed set from my turntables and the output of my mixer is connected to the ‘mic’ input on my laptop. The problem is that when I start recording the mix and try to listen to the music through my computer speakers by enabling ‘software playthrough,’ the music coming out of my laptop is not in time with what I can hear in my headphones which makes mixing in the next record very difficult. Can anyone help me with overcoming this problem? Cheers
Using a “Microphone Input” is far from ideal, but OK, let’s go with what you’ve got.
Switch off “software playthrough”. If that makes it so that you can not hear the turntables, go into the Windows Mixer or the sound cards control panel and enable playback for the mic in.
Great, that worked at least and I was able to record a mix just in time, thanks!
What other method would you recommend for this process that would be better?
As far as I can tell, the only ‘in-point’ on my latop is the mic?
<<<As far as I can tell, the only ‘in-point’ on my latop is the mic?>>>
Pretty much. PCs are designed for interoffice corporate phone calls and communications, not audio production. Macs do stereo audio production just fine, but they can’t handle a microphone directly.
What most PC people do is get an external USB sound device to handle high-level stereo production audio.
Koz
Found a fix! I have been using a music keyboard (Yamaha PSR 630) to record track 1 then playback to begin recording track 2. The timing is out. Deleted track 2 and tried again to record with the changes below. I found the following fix which corrected the timing. Go to EDIT> Preferences> Audio I/O then on that page altered the following. “Overdub” checked on. “Software Playthrough” NOT checked X.
Then most importantly- Latency Correction first box leave Audio Buffer"at default 100ms.
Second box “Latency Correction” changed the value to -145 (that’s minus/ negative 145 !) The lag was corrected. I did try many values from 300, 200, 100 all worse track 2 lags behind track 2,
0, -100, 130, 140 all lead getting closer to same sound time,-145,
too far for-200, 300 (track 2 leads ahead of track 1)
You can see the tracks leading or lagging each other by ear or more accurately look at the wave pattern and compare between track 1 against track 2 zoom in a few levels too.
I used the drum generated beat on my music keyboard to produce the same original sound wave inputted. Those values suit my computer and you might need to experiment higher or lower numbers. I love this program for recording and mixing individual parts.
Thanks kozikowski.
Any recommendations for such a external USB sound device?
I use a Behringer UCA 202 which does a nice job at a rock bottom price.
Waxcylinder (a regular forum contributor) uses an Edirol UA-1EX which is a bit more money, but higher spec and a couple of extra features.