USB Mic Latency

[kookeezy]

I have a Snowball USB mic made by Blue Mic.. I do not have a interface or external sound card or anything like that. I just plug it in directly to my comp. This audacity program was the first I could get to successfully record while being able to actually hear what Im recording. The only problem is it has about a One second Latency. I need help, I've look for answers but cant find any.. any tips or fixes? Thanks
Koo Koo aka Mickey Blue Eyez

[kozikowski]

Since the microphone has no analog sound signal of its own, it depends on the computer to turn the USB signal into sound for you. Any time the computer has to think about something, it takes time and the slower the computer, the worse it is.

Audacity has two settings in preferences: Hardware Playthrough and Software Playthrough. They both do what you want. Hardware Playthrough may not do anything for a USB microphone because there is no sound card to mess with. Even if you did have a sound card, not all of them support Hardware Playthrough, but that typically gives the least worst delay.

Software Playthrough is the one that everybody supports and it's always way late.

If you're trying to play music to yourself, the only sure way to get in-time performances is with a sound mixer and Audacity 1.3. Audacity 1.3.11 has tools to get rid of another delay you haven't experienced yet. Playing the old track, you singing, and recording the new track can all be off time.

"How come I sing exactly on time but when I play it back, I'm off the beat?"

Audacity 1.3 has Latency Delay settings which allow you to tune that one out.

Digital Audio Workstations are special beasts and not every computer can do what they do.

Koz

[kookeezy]

see thats the difference.. When I click the option to not hear the mic when I record, it sounds fine and on time, I just cant hear myself while recording, I can do this with other programs.. so, whats the best option to get rid of the delay and still hear myself while recording?

[steve]

I just cant hear myself while recording, I can do this with other programs.. so, whats the best option to get rid of the delay and still hear myself while recording?

The options are not good.
You can achieve low latency if you use a low latency sound system. On Windows this means using ASIO which can not be distributed with Audacity due to licensing restrictions. ASIO support can be built into Audacity, but that requires compiling it in from the source code and is not a task to be taken lightly unless you have some computer software experience.
Other alternatives are that you can change your hardware so that you are using a device that supports simultaneous input and output.
The third option is to use a different program (a non-open source program that has ASIO support) for doing the recording. If you still want to use Audacity for editing, you can export as WAV from that program and do the editing in Audacity.

[kookeezy]

damn, that sucks. alright thanks for the advice!