Audacity Forum

First, I'm a brand new member, and I should also say that I know almost nothing about recording and sound despite my love of making music. Anyways, I've been having a lot of weird latency issues... the lag actually changes throughout the recording. This would make me think it is the sound card, but when I hear of sound card issues, the latency usually gets worse as the recording goes on. When I do the test with a click track, my latency actually starts at around 155-160 ms. As the time passes, the latency decreases. For every second, the latency gets about 10ms better... could anybody explain why this is happening/possible solutions? thanks.

luuuuuuukee wrote:This would make me think it is the sound card

Most likely the sound card. If the latency is drifting in either direction (better or worse) it indicates that the sound card clock speed is not consistent.
Sometimes you will get more consistent latency at one sample rate than another. If you have the default sample rate set to 44100, try changing it to 48000 (or vice versa).
Very occasionally driver updates can improve drifting latency problems (I've heard of this working a grand total of 1 occasion).

Thanks for the reply. That would make sense.. I'm using the card that came with my computer. I'm embarrassed to be asking, but how do I change the sample rate??

EDIT: I know how to change it (by clicking on the left tab on the individual tracks), but do I just change the sample rate for all of them after recording? Walk me through it, if you wouldn't mind.

To change the sample rate for the current project, use the "Project Rate" box in the lower left corner of the main Audacity window.

To change the "default" project rate (for new projects) - go to "Edit menu > Preferences > Quality".

(It may be worth noting that if you Import an audio file into an empty project, the sample rate of the imported file will override the default setting and change the project sample rate to match the imported file.)

And just so we're crystal clear, Latency is the fixed (usually) delay between you singing live and the track played back to you for matching. You can adjust Audacity 1.3 to play, for example, the recorded file slightly early, so by the time your voice arrives through all the electronics, everything matched up. This is a preferences setting. It should be once per computer.

Then there's the delay that many people experience listening to themselves come back from the computer in real time. If you're a lucky devil, Hardware Playthrough (Preferences) is supported and works OK. If not Software Playthrough is always late and will drive you crazy.

Cheap Sound Card isn't strictly a delay, but the playback specifications and the recording specs are different. That's the one where you can sing to yourself in perfect time and yet one performance is longer than the other. If you follow performance one and produce performance three, four and five, all those will match each other, but not one. If you follow two to sing three, and then three to sing four, then you have garbage.

You have a celebrity. If you actually have drifting or changing delays, then your sound card may be fried. I don't know any software that can do that.

Do you have a USB microphone? They don't go through the sound card (although the playback of the show does). That can be used as a diagnostic tool. You only have one trip through the sound card to worry about.

Koz

You wrote:

Then there's the delay that many people experience listening to themselves come back from the computer in real time. If you're a lucky devil, Hardware Playthrough (Preferences) is supported and works OK. If not Software Playthrough is always late and will drive you crazy.

When I open the Audio Preferences/Recording dialog, I see the "Software Playthrough" check box -- there is no "Hardware Playthrough."

How does one resolve the Software Playthrough so it doesn't drive one crazy.

Am I doomed to have late playthrough always late?

How is this situation resolved?

Thanks . . .

<<<there is no "Hardware Playthrough.">>>

Then your computer doesn't support it. Macs don't support it.

The only options are to listen late or listen to the sound mixer (if you have one -- and this is a terrific reason to have one) or some newer powered microphones actually provide a headphone connection and that's why.

Not all computers can be easily turned into Digital Audio Workstations.

Koz

This is my setup:

System Type: x64-based PC
CPU: Quad-core processor, 2200 Mhx
Installed Mem: 6 Gbytes
Sound Device: Realtek High Definition Audio
Name: High Definition Audio Device
Manuf: Microsoft
Status: OK
Driver: Realtek

I downloaded the new driver.

Same sample rate as project rate -- 2 channel, 16 bit, 44100 Hz (CD Quality)

Is this sufficient info, to tell you whether my computer is capable of being used as a mulyi-track, digital recording device?

Is the answer a different sound card?

I really appreciate your help . . .

The computer is plenty powerful enough.
The sound card could do with upgrading - the Realtek on-board sound cards are usually pretty poor for recording.
Plenty of hard drive space is also needed - preferably on a fast hard drive.
I'm not a fan of Vista for audio work.