Recording Delay
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Posted on Dec 03, 2006 06:04 pm
Maxwel the Great
Producer, Emcee, Revolutionary.
Member Since: Dec 03, 2006
Ok, I've used Acid Pro 6 and Ntrack and I keep getting delays in recording. Is this because I have Realtek AC'97 and not a real soundcard? Or is it because my processor is to slow(AMD Athlon 3500+ 2.2 GHz)? I plan on buying a sound card just wanted to make sure that would fix the problem first. And also, got any suggestions on soundcards?
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Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Dec 03, 2006 06:43 pm Welcome to HRC first off.
And yes, the AC97 is the culprit for the latency. Your CPU is fast enough, ram is another issue if you are under 512 meg. Generally with most programs today 1 gig is getting to be the minimum but not always.
As for the sound card recommendation, what type of music are you going to be recording, and how many instruments or such will you need to record at one time. If your like a lot of people here a simple 2 channel card will do as most of us record one instrument at a time. But if your planning on recording a full on band with live drums, you might want to think of a different card with maybe 8 channels of i/o.
Dec 03, 2006 07:01 pm Thank you thank you so so much lol. I have 2 gigs ram. I was positive that wasn't the problem just needed that reassurance that I wouldn't be wasting my money buying a soundcard. For the inputs, I'll probably only be recording one input at a time. And I was planning on getting a firewire mixer because I will be using some guitars, bass, and keyboards with the help from some of my talented friends. I'm recording hip hop, but it's definately not your average. Look at my influences to see what I mean. So thanks again, so what do ya think for a sound card and mixer(dont need a great one,firewire or usb is ok) and I can't get too too expensive lol. With 200$ being my limit for both, seperately of course.
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Dec 03, 2006 07:46 pm Alright then, CPU and ram are more then enough.
You can look at a couple different options really. ON one hand you can go with a small two channel audio interface and a small maybe 6 channel mixer. That would keep you near your budget limit. Only problem there is most of the small mixers are a bugger to try and moniter with while recordig the next tracks.
One thing you might want to look at since you are going to record guitar, bass and direct keyboards would be the Line 6 Toneport UX-2. It has two dedicated XLR inputs for mic's that are pahnotm powered to use a good condenser mic with. It can be run through the USB, has ASIO for very low latency and good audio quality. It also has several line input options which would allow to record stereo keyboards or record a single channel say bass or guitar. It give you a load of guitar amps sims as well as bass amp sims. And the real bonus that I use here frequently are the high end mic pre-amp sims. Those would come in handy when recording vocals and such.
That would eliminate the need for an external mixer and allow you to moniter either via the headphone output or the line outputs to a set of moniters either powered or amped.
I have several other high end audio interfaces here in the studio and I find myself going to the UX-2 more often then not.
Just a couple options for you to look at.
If your intereted we reviewed the UX-1 and UX-2 a while ago. Here is the link to that review.
www.homerecordingconnecti...tory&id=727
Ask away if you have any other questions.
Noize
LokiCone PokerMember
Since: Apr 07, 2002
Dec 03, 2006 07:46 pm Noise hit it before me. With your soundcard needs, are you going to need midi? Are you going to eventually want to be able to record more than one track at a time?
Dec 03, 2006 08:03 pm Recording more than one track at a time really isn't hugely important to me, but I will be using midi. I connect my keyboard to my computer now thru a M-Audio 1x1 midi to usb adapter. And thanks for the advice again.
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Dec 03, 2006 08:05 pm Then the UX-2 might be all that you need. As long as you already have the midi i/o then audio is your main concern.
Dec 03, 2006 08:07 pm Ok thankyou, I think I'll be coming back here quite often now. This helped me alot.
Dec 05, 2006 09:16 am Noize,
If I may jump in on this thread - you said something that struck a chord (so to speak) with me: "ON one hand you can go with a small two channel audio interface and a small maybe 6 channel mixer. That would keep you near your budget limit. Only problem there is most of the small mixers are a bugger to try and moniter with while recordig the next tracks."
That's exactly what I did, and exactly the problem I'm having. I have yet to figure out how to monitor track 1 while recording track 2, without re-recording track 1 onto track 2, with latency. How do folks solve this problem? Is there a mointor trick in the software (experimenting with Tracktion at the moment), or just have a separate headphone mixer for the two signals?
SR
SR
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Dec 05, 2006 10:05 pm Yep, you nailed it on the head. With the small mixers you don't have the optional sub outs or spare Aux outs that can help with getting the tracks out and back.
One option with those small units is sending your track, which will be limited to mono on the smaller mixers like that out through the Aux send to the input of the sound card. This will allow you to take your outputs from the sound card and drop them into say your last 2 channels or a stereo channel on the little mixer to monitor without it re-recording the playback tracks.
The other option as you mentioned is using a small headphone mixer to monitor with. Although headphones are not optimal for monitoring and mixing they certainly will do the job in a pinch.
Hope that answered it for you. Just ask if it didn't make sense and I'll try and explain a little better.
Dec 06, 2006 12:11 am OK - that makes sense. I'll see what I can do!
Your advice is incredibly helpful (specifically, and in general)- appreciate your generosity.
SR
