Hi, I use Audacity to record my own guitar and mandolin arrangements of folk music. I’ve just recently upgraded to version 2.3.0, and have now got a problem with synchronisation when playing over a rhythm track. I am using a Behrlinger condenser mic through a Zoom u-22 audio interface into my HP laptop running Windows 10, and it’s been working without any problems since September 2017. Firstly Windows WASAPI produced a ghastly bubbling sound on playback.
Unable to fix this, I reverted to using the Windows Direct audio host. I put down a 140bpm rhythm track and found my guitar part has ‘slipped’ by an entire beat on playback despite being bang on when recording. I’ve been racking my brains on this, messing with latency buffer sizes all to no avail.
Thank you so much, that seems to have fixed the problem. I’ve set Latency Compensation to -369, which does seem a very high number (considering it defaulted to -130 to start with). Also, I have never had this problem with previous versions - is this a new issue? Finally, what has happened to WASAPI that is causing such distortion? Could it be the same issue?
Yes, that’s high, but all sound cards are different, and USB devices often have higher latency than built-in sound cards.
No. All versions of Audacity have had a latency correction setting (for at least the last 10 years).
Short answer - I don’t know.
Possibly the sample rate settings for the device have changed in the Windows Sound Control Panel.
Possibly there has been a driver update included in a Windows update.
There are many other “possible” explanations, but I think those two are among the most likely.