monitor delay help

[gvverner9]

Hi all,
I'm new to audacity. I have the 1.3 beta on my Toshiba laptop with windows 7. When I try to play my guitar or mic through my computer speakers I get a delay that really throws me off while trying to overdub. The weird thing is my alesis keyboard doesn't experience the same delay. I tried adjusting the latency but it didnt seem to help. I was told it could be buffer speed but I cant figure out how to do it. I'm not very good with this stuff so any help would be greatly appreciated.

[steve]

How are you connecting the devices to the computer?
Ensure that Software Playthrough is off (Transport menu).

[gvverner9]

I have toggled software playback on and off and had no success. I'm just connected to the mic jack using a cheap adapter. Is there a better cheap way? I just want a very inexpensive way to demo. Is it possible its just my laptop? Its five years old but I just reformatted it.

[steve]

When I try to play my guitar or mic through my computer speakers I get a delay that really throws me off while trying to overdub. The weird thing is my alesis keyboard doesn't experience the same delay.

So what are you doing different when you use the keyboard?

[gvverner9]

That's why I don't understand, I don't feel like I'm doing anything different. Nothing else is hooked up when I use the keys. I actually have unplugged from it to plug a guitar in and the delay is still there. The alesis is a qs8.2 workstation. The adapter is just a radioshak 1/4 to 1/8 or whatever the typical ratio of guitar to headphone jack is

[steve]

So are you saying that you can plug-in your keyboard to the computer sound card and everything is OK, but if you then unplug the keyboard and plug in the guitar then there is a delay?

[gvverner9]

Correct

[steve]

Where are your headphones plugged in (in each case?)

[gvverner9]

I'm just playing through the laptop speakers. Do you think I need a MIDI audio interface? I talked to my buddy about it possibly being that the alesis has its own interface which eliminates this delay. If this is the case, any suggestions of cheap interfaces? Or is it anything like an a/d converter that I need?

[steve]

Do you think I need a MIDI audio interface?

Audacity does not record MIDI, so a MIDI interface will not help with this issue.

I'm just playing through the laptop speakers.

If your system is configured in the same way when you are using a keyboard as when you are using a guitar, I don't see how there can be any difference to the monitor delay. Could it be that there is a small delay in both cases but just more noticeable to you when you play the guitar?

I've heard that there can be a small delay on Windows 7, even when things are set up correctly, but I'm not a Win 7 user so I'm not sure why this is or if the system can be tweaked to minimise this delay - I'll ask about this and see what I can find out.