Link Latency preferences with Hosts

[WalkerD]

It seems like it should be a thing ...so I'm point it out here:


I use to change the audio Host between MME, Wasapi and ASIO quite often, and one thing that bothers me is that I'm always needing to adjust the Latency correction individually (since each host has a different latency when recording).
I don't mind latency at all though.. the Latency correction Preference takes this problem away from me... ..but changing Hosts, always brings it back. Hosts and the Latency correction Preference seem very related to me, so maybe they could be linked together in the future?

By that I mean that, Latency correction adjustments would be saved separately for each Host (they could be all the same number initially, by default.. ..but once you change it, it could consider that a change only for the host currently being used).




I'm not sure if the whole "Recording" preferences page should be linked to the Hosts individually.. ..but the Latency correction Preference at least seems to make sense to me to be linked like so.


Thanks.

[kozikowski]

You could get a similar effect by setting up three individual Audacity installs and use the right one for each host. No setups, or actually one setup for each host. You can't run two instances of Audacity, but just selecting the right one at the right time should be a lot handier.

I'm not sure how to do that in Windows, I'm not a Windows elf.

Koz

[WalkerD]

You could get a similar effect by setting up three individual Audacity installs and use the right one for each host. No setups, or actually one setup for each host. You can't run two instances of Audacity, but just selecting the right one at the right time should be a lot handier.

I'm not sure how to do that in Windows, I'm not a Windows elf.

Koz

I see.. that may be a way to do it (but almost equally annoying :p ). I had two instances of Audacity before (of different versions), and it seemed to me that they used some of the same setting for both instances (like toolbar positions.. changing the positions in one instance messed up with the positions of the other instance too), even them not being installed in the same place at all (maybe they both looked at the same Appdata files or something..)

Thank you for your suggestion and comment. I hope this issue gets attention in the future, cause be able to set Latency correction for Hosts individually would be a good update (and definitely is a thing that makes sense to me as a new feature).

[steve]

Unless you are overdubbing the latency correction does not matter.
When you are overdubbing, which host do you use?

[Gale Andrews]

I don't mind latency at all though.. the Latency correction Preference takes this problem away from me... ..but changing Hosts, always brings it back. Hosts and the Latency correction Preference seem very related to me, so maybe they could be linked together in the future?

By that I mean that, Latency correction adjustments would be saved separately for each Host (they could be all the same number initially, by default.. ..but once you change it, it could consider that a change only for the host currently being used).

I'm in favour of moving the "Latency" panel into Devices Preferences, then the two values in the Latency panel would depend on host.

This would have the advantage of making clear that Audio to buffer affects playback as well as recording, which is currently a very important issue on Mac OS X (playback can crackle unless Audio to buffer is reduced to near zero).


Gale

[Gale Andrews]

You could get a similar effect by setting up three individual Audacity installs and use the right one for each host. No setups, or actually one setup for each host. You can't run two instances of Audacity, but just selecting the right one at the right time should be a lot handier.

I'm not sure how to do that in Windows, I'm not a Windows elf.

Koz

I see.. that may be a way to do it (but almost equally annoying :p ). I had two instances of Audacity before (of different versions), and it seemed to me that they used some of the same setting for both instances (like toolbar positions.. changing the positions in one instance messed up with the positions of the other instance too), even them not being installed in the same place at all (maybe they both looked at the same Appdata files or something..)

Yes, WalkerD is correct. Whatever number of Audacity 2.x versions the user has, they will all look in the same location for the same settings, unless the user creates a separate Portable Settings folder in each folder the different Audacity versions are run from. I assume that is what Koz means, but this works on Windows and Linux as well as Mac. See http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/pr ... tml#stored.


Gale

[WalkerD]

Just checked the link about the Portable Settings. It's a interesting feature. And Thank you for giving attention to my points

Unless you are overdubbing the latency correction does not matter.
When you are overdubbing, which host do you use?

indeed.. that's the practical relevance of latency (how out of sync the recorded track is in comparison with the others in the project). That's probably why I only wrote in the OP hosts that I overdub or that I had overdub in the past on (yup, even Wasapi).

May not be that common to do overdub with Wasapi, but I've done it, to record virtual keyboard, some simple loop variations, and with some standalone distortion/amp softs.. ..mostly using visual cue of the other tracks in Audacity project, with them muted (or with an empty track as Solo), or recording first with them unmuted, to have a "track mix" (not sure if latency is that big of a issue when mixing tracks like that.. it didn't bother me much when I did it) just as a future visual reference, to then record with the other tracks muted. It's not pretty, but it's reasonably fast, and I've done it before, to record track ideas and whatnot :p

I tend to use Asio less nowadays... I usually use MME. But when I eventually use it for some reason, overdubbing is normally there too.

[waxcylinder]

I'm in favour of moving the "Latency" panel into Devices Preferences, then the two values in the Latency panel would depend on host.

This would have the advantage of making clear that Audio to buffer affects playback as well as recording, which is currently a very important issue on Mac OS X (playback can crackle unless Audio to buffer is reduced to near zero).

+1

Peter