Help!??!??!

[Rooster127]

When i plug my guitar pod in to my mic socket and try and play, it sounds great, but, is it comes out 1/2 a second after i play it???? any ideas?

[billw58]

You have encountered the dreaded "software playthrough" delay.

Go to Edit > Preferences then the Recording tab. Uncheck "software playthrough" and check "hardware playthrough". Click OK and try again. If you can't hear anything this means that your computer doesn't support hardware playthrough, at least not from within Audacity.

Next we need to know what computer and OS you are running, in order to determine if there is some way you can use your operating system's sound control panel to get zero-delay playback of whatever you plug into the mic socket.

-- Bill

[kozikowski]

Audacity 1.3 is claimed to have tools to "tune" latency delay -- hopefully out.

Koz

[billw58]

Audacity 1.3 is claimed to have tools to "tune" latency delay -- hopefully out.

Koz:
I've tested this extensively on three Macs. The software playthough delay is independent of the Latency Correction and Audio to Buffer settings in Recording Preferences. In the three cases I tested it was a fixed amount. On an Intel iMac 2 GHz Core 2 duo: 137 ms. On a Mac G5 Dual 2 GHz: 62 ms. And on a PowerBook G4 1.67 GHz: 68 ms. This was using an AT2020USB mic.

How did I test it? Set Audacity for software playthrough. Set the mic up close to the speakers. Start recording and turn up the speakers to just below feedback. Tap two pencils together real close to the mic. Stop recording and measure the delay between the original hit and the delayed hit re-recorded from the speaker after the software playthrough delay. 62 ms may not sound like much, but it's like hearing your voice coming out of speakers 70 feet away.

The Latency Correction only applies to overdubbing. I've made a page in the manual on how to measure this. The way Audacity does latency correction is to push back the overdubbed track by the specified amount after recording is finished - that's all. This latency is affected (to some extent - it's complicated) by the Audio to Buffer setting.

I'm of the opinion that we should never refer to the software playthrough delay as latency - it will confuse users into thinking it is somehow linked to Latency Correction, which it is not. There's nothing you can do about it, no setting you can make that will make it go away. Call it "software playthrough delay", or "playthrough delay", but don't call it latency.

-- Bill

[kozikowski]

So if Hardware Playthrough doesn't do it, you lose on Sports Call®. No live monitoring for you!

Koz

[billw58]

So if Hardware Playthrough doesn't do it, you lose on Sports Call®. No live monitoring for you!
Koz

And no soup, either!

-- Bill

[Rooster127]

Thanks for your msg`s!!!! So Ok, so im f*cked then? my mate runs the same free audacity thro his laptop no probs!? so what does this mean? i gotta get a new pc?

[billw58]

Thanks for your msg`s!!!! So Ok, so im f*cked then? my mate runs the same free audacity thro his laptop no probs!? so what does this mean? i gotta get a new pc?

Did you try Hardware Playthrough?

You're on a Windows machine, right? Which OS (XP? Vista?). How does your mate listen to his guitar without a delay? What settings does he use? It might be something you can do in the Windows control panel, but I'll leave that to one of the Windows elves (I'm a Mac guy, myself).

-- Bill

[Rooster127]

You have encountered the dreaded "software playthrough" delay.

Go to Edit > Preferences then the Recording tab. Uncheck "software playthrough" and check "hardware playthrough". Click OK and try again. If you can't hear anything this means that your computer doesn't support hardware playthrough, at least not from within Audacity.

Next we need to know what computer and OS you are running, in order to determine if there is some way you can use your operating system's sound control panel to get zero-delay playback of whatever you plug into the mic socket.

-- Bill

Hi bill, i tryed to (check "hardware playthrough") but dont seam to have that option on my recording tab!?

[steve]

If you are using the latest 1.3 version, the option is also available near the bottom of the Transport menu.

I would recommend that users upgrade to the latest version until Audacity 2.0 is released.