A problem with...reverb, I guess? - 2008/02/09 23:36I was recording earlier, and although my timing was on, on 2 different takes there was a half-second difference in timing. Does anyone know what I was doing wrong? I'm using Audacity, if that matters. Thanks in advance!
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bellamysprotege
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Re:A problem with...reverb, I guess? - 2008/02/11 17:48possibly reverb but if your system is anything like mine, perhaps a latency problem? I tend to find that if i lay one track down and then play along with it while recording, even though my timing is spot on, it comes up late in my sequencer, and needs dragged back to the right spot in time. If its the same thing, theres no cure that I know of (apart from buying a more expensive soundcard! )
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mick
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Re:A problem with...reverb, I guess? - 2008/02/11 17:58Sounds like latency. If you're using hardware monitoring you'll hear everything on time but the latency may cause it hit the recorder late.
Some things you can do
1) Reduce the number of playing tracks. If you don't need a track, mute it. Maybe you're singing to the drums and rhythm guitar but you don't need the base, the guitar solo track, the shakers, etc. Mute everything you can.
2) Turn off any effects you don't need. Digital effects are just MATH that require a lot of FFT work and lots of CPU. If you don't need reverb, chorus, compression, etc on a track to capture the current one, turn them all off. I record everything dry as I can except when I'm playing off an effect such as timing a guitar lick to it's own echo or something like that. THe effects go in at mixing time.
3) Check your latency settings. Most people don't notice a latency of 8-10ms but it gets noticeable around 20ms and will bug the hell out of you at even 30ms. This is very often a choice in your DAW software but your hardware has to support it.
4) Upgrade hardware. Your best solution here is better hardware. You do need professional audio hardware like RME or M-Audio to do complex digital recording. I worked very hard to build a system that lets me do 20+ tracks with a latency of 6ms. I use the RME Hammerfall gear and it's amazing stuff. One thing that can always help. Memory. More RAM. I use 8GB in my system. You can NEVER have enough.
Good luck!
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malocchio
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Re:A problem with...reverb, I guess? - 2008/02/11 18:57I have the same issue with latency when I record in Audacity...I definitely agree that's the problem. I generally use Cubase for multitracking, so I haven't tried to resolve the problem in Audacity.
The newer beta version of Audacity (v 1.3) has some latency settings under Preferences > Audio I/O. I don't see the same options in the older version, so it might be worth downloading v1.3 and messing around with those settings.
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mick
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Re:A problem with...reverb, I guess? - 2008/02/11 19:01malocchio wrote: The newer beta version of Audacity (v 1.3) has some latency settings under Preferences > Audio I/O. I don't see the same options in the older version, so it might be worth downloading v1.3 and messing around with those settings.
You need ASIO drivers in Windows to touch anything with latency. Without those drivers for your sound card, you're at the mercy of the OS. Those latency settings come from the Linux version of Audacity where you can use JACK and real time scheduling. I'm not sure what they do in Windows.
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tangmo
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Re:A problem with...reverb, I guess? - 2008/02/11 20:00While I agree it is likely latency, one simple thing you might check is that the tracks are actually synched together at the beginning. I've been baffled a time or two in my DAW before realizing I'd accidently nudged one track out of synch with the others. Worth a look, at any rate.
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17string
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Re:A problem with...reverb, I guess? - 2008/02/12 01:02bellamysprotege wrote: possibly reverb but if your system is anything like mine, perhaps a latency problem? I tend to find that if i lay one track down and then play along with it while recording, even though my timing is spot on, it comes up late in my sequencer, and needs dragged back to the right spot in time.
All other things being equal -- i.e. if you can't kick out $$ for a faster processor, newer HW and more memory -- slide the tracks once you've recorded them. This will work to restore order to the tracks you've already recorded and found out-of-sync (you haven't erased them, have you?) Once you've got the drill down pat, you can slide the tracks immediately after recording so you don't even listen to them before applying the correction. Good Luck!
of course, if you have already gone out and bought the 8-core 3GHz multiDSP farm, then happily ignore!
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)
-- slide the tracks once you've recorded them. This will work to restore order to the tracks you've already recorded and found out-of-sync (you haven't erased them, have you?) Once you've got the drill down pat, you can slide the tracks immediately after recording so you don't even listen to them before applying the correction. Good Luck!
