Not your typical latency question

[Tweaked]

How are your Mackie's connected to the computer?
Can you route the direct out from the Tonelab to your Mackies?

Here is my current setup. I have a custom built computer with an EVGA X58 SLI motherboard running an Intel Core i7 920 processor OC'd to 3.6ghz with Hyperthreading enabled. 6gb of OCZ DDR3 1866 Mhz RAM, and a Creative Labs X-Fi Titanium HD sound card. My Mackie MR-5's are connected directly to the sound card via RCA. I could connect them to the Vox tonelab, but I would need a different cable, and then have to reconfigure for recording multiple tracks during playback. Looks like a quality headset might be my only option. Ugh.

[kevin998]

Don't get too hung up on a little latency. You aren't going to be able to hear any latency less than 10ms, and most digital to analog converters can to an analog conversion, and back again in less than 1.5ms.

You are more likely to have latency problems at church when you hear your own reflections that may by 50ms or 100ms, which is definitely audible and very distracting.

[Tweaked]

Don't get too hung up on a little latency. You aren't going to be able to hear any latency less than 10ms, and most digital to analog converters can to an analog conversion, and back again in less than 1.5ms.

You are more likely to have latency problems at church when you hear your own reflections that may by 50ms or 100ms, which is definitely audible and very distracting.

I would agree with you accept that there is nearly 1-2 seconds of delay right now.

[kozikowski]

<<<I would agree with you accept that there is nearly 1-2 seconds of delay right now.>>>

Good to know. That means the software is trying to manage all the sound services -- badly. No amount of hardware can cause delays like that.

<<<an EVGA X58 SLI motherboard running an Intel Core i7 920 processor OC'd to 3.6ghz with Hyperthreading enabled.>>>

More alarm bells. Audacity is a simple program and likes running on simple computers. If you greatly customized your machine, you just took one giant step back from us being able to easily help you. You must have left out a step either in the machine configuration or the software programs you're running. A screamer machine like that should have little or no delay.

How big are the hard drives and how full are they? Have you ever run a memory checker for several cycles? Audio programs are frequently the only programs that use all the hardware memory and machines that worked just fine up until then, suddenly develop problems when running Audacity. Is there anything else trying to use sound services at the same time?

Do you have a killer Virus Protection package? Some of them like to inspect everything and will kill live audio and video production.

Koz

[Tweaked]

<<<I would agree with you accept that there is nearly 1-2 seconds of delay right now.>>>

Good to know. That means the software is trying to manage all the sound services -- badly. No amount of hardware can cause delays like that.

<<<an EVGA X58 SLI motherboard running an Intel Core i7 920 processor OC'd to 3.6ghz with Hyperthreading enabled.>>>

More alarm bells. Audacity is a simple program and likes running on simple computers. If you greatly customized your machine, you just took one giant step back from us being able to easily help you. You must have left out a step either in the machine configuration or the software programs you're running. A screamer machine like that should have little or no delay.

How big are the hard drives and how full are they? Have you ever run a memory checker for several cycles? Audio programs are frequently the only programs that use all the hardware memory and machines that worked just fine up until then, suddenly develop problems when running Audacity. Is there anything else trying to use sound services at the same time?

Do you have a killer Virus Protection package? Some of them like to inspect everything and will kill live audio and video production.

Koz

I have not really customized the OS at all. I have done all my Overclocking within the bios, this should not affect the software except to make is run faster. I also used the default configuration during install of Audacity 1.3 Beta I am pretty minimalist when it comes to programs, but could you list some programs that are known to conflict with Audacity?

I have a 320gb SATA 7200 RPM hard drive for my OS and all installed programs. There is approximately 100gb of space remaining on that drive. I also have a 750gb hard drive for storage of pics and music. I have only used about 100gb of that drive. Then I have a 750gb external hard drive for backups.

I am using Avast Home edition antivirus program, and it is a very efficient program that has never slowed my system down

The Creative sound card is a new addition and I may take it back. I have just not noticed enough of a difference in sound quality to warrant the extra cost of the card. Unless you guys have some input to change my mind.

[steve]

Avast should not be a problem - I run it on my Windows XP machine and it does not interfere with Audacity.

1-2 seconds delay sounds excessive, but it is not uncommon on Windows machines to have 0.5 to 1 second delay when using software playthrough from a USB device with Audacity 1.3.x. There were unreliable USB connection problems with Audacity 1.2.x on some machines, so as part of the fix the developers deliberately slowed down the software playthrough in Audacity 1.3.x. The result is that USB connections are more reliable, but software playthrough is unusable on Windows for live work, but as far as the developers are concerned that is not a problem, because software playthrough was intended primarily to allow users with USB turntables to monitor what they are recording. For live multi-track recording it is expected that musicians will use direct hardware monitoring, as that is the only way to achieve zero latency monitoring (which is obviously the ideal for multi-tracking).

Ideally you would have an external (hardware) mixer (mixing desk/mixing console) as this would allow you to hear the guitar directly before it is sent to the computer, then mix it with the playback of the computer which would go to an independent monitor mix (control room mix), thus allowing you to hear what you are playing synchronised with the other tracks to well within a couple of milliseconds.