Old 11-18-2018, 10:39 AM   #1
DrGed
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Default Hardware Upgrade??

I tried to record a vocal this afternoon and it was a bit of a disaster.

It was the age old problem of Latency versus "glitches". if the block size is too small I get the glitches and if it is too big then latency rears its ugly head. I haven't been able to find what some call a "sweet spot" where both disappear and I wondered if my PC could need a bit of upgrading?

The current specs are :-

Processor i5-4460, 3.2GHz
8Mb of RAM
64 bit Windows 10 Home Edition
2Tb HDD

Some suggested trying an SSD as the drive where my Reaper projects are stored. Would this help or should I consider an i7 processor?
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Old 11-18-2018, 01:24 PM   #2
Juan D'Fall
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My spec is not much different to yours. I have a 3.2G i5, I have SSDs now, but that doesn't make that much difference. I'm on 128 samples 6.5ms in and 7.5ms out. Turn off Reapers monitor and use the direct monitoring on your audio interface. That way, you won't hear the latency when you record vocals. You don't say if you have an audio interface, but if you don't have one, I suggest you get one, it makes recording so easy.
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Old 11-18-2018, 03:08 PM   #3
serr
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Yeah, if you're recording with the computer's built-in mic or a USB mic, upgrade the interface instead of the computer.

That said, depending on the plugins used in the project, your computer could do live sound duties with ultra low latency if needed. Recording overdubs by monitoring the live inputs with an audio interface's built-in cuemix is SOP as mentioned though.
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Old 11-18-2018, 03:40 PM   #4
DrGed
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Thanks for the replies. Sorry, but I forgot to mention that I use a Focusrite 2I2 interface with direct monitoring switched on. This led me to believe I'd sorted things out but the time lag was there in playback. I know this might be a stupid question but, if all else fails, could I just switch snapping off and move the vocal part into its correct position? Obviously, I want a much better solution but I don't know what to try next.
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Old 11-19-2018, 02:07 AM   #5
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Have you checked to see that you are running the latest (recently upgraded) Focusrite drivers for your interface? Could have a bearing on this.

I would also recommend that you download resplendence.com`s latency checker and run it. If you do have any issues with real-time multitrack audio/MIDI recording or playback, it will usually report that theres a problem and tell you where to look for possible solutions.

Whilst you are on the Focusrite site, they have a good guide to optimising your computer for recording under win10.
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Old 11-19-2018, 12:38 PM   #6
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I have almost the same setup & no latency problems, although I got it bad when I tried to disable CPU throttling (unlike previous Windows, W10 works better when left alone.) Although I have found, like you, I do need to shift live performance items slightly due to latency that is still there, that you don't notice with direct monitoring.
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Old 11-19-2018, 01:22 PM   #7
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Many thanks for the last two replies.

I have downloaded the latency checker as suggested by ivansc but it doesn't seem as straightfoward to use as I'd hoped it would be. I'll have to persevere.

I think I can probably live with shifting audio tracks a little. I suppose in the overall scheme of things, it's maybe not such an onerous thing to do after all.

Am I right in thinking that these problems can be at their worst when recording a vocal track?
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Old 11-20-2018, 11:25 AM   #8
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Yes. In another thread, someone actually calculated latency and how much nudging was needed to correct it in a pretty precise manner, unfortunately I don't remember anything else about it!
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Old 11-20-2018, 12:37 PM   #9
serr
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DrGed View Post
Many thanks for the last two replies.

I have downloaded the latency checker as suggested by ivansc but it doesn't seem as straightfoward to use as I'd hoped it would be. I'll have to persevere.

I think I can probably live with shifting audio tracks a little. I suppose in the overall scheme of things, it's maybe not such an onerous thing to do after all.

Am I right in thinking that these problems can be at their worst when recording a vocal track?
I think you may have simply missed a setup step: Calibrating your new DAW to your hardware.

Reaper Preferences/Audio/Recording page is where the controls are for this.

Backing up a step...
You can choose to run a DAW in very low latency to do live work if you have the computer to support that. The more common thing to do (and for those with lighter weight computers) is to monitor live overdub audio with the mixer built into your audio interface as mentioned earlier. Thus never needing real-time low latency in the DAW itself. You then set the latency of the system high to conserve resources for mixing.

For that SOP latent setup, you need to calibrate the DAW to nudge newly recorded audio back to normalize for the lag. The default of using what the driver reports is often at least close. You can run a loopback test and dial in an offset to calibrate your system to the sample.

We've come a LONG way from the Protools days of having to do this manually with literally every overdub you record! (Ugh... Don't miss that one bit!) It's a feature now. Actually to be fair, Protools was the first to implement this feature. I recall them only adding it to the full HD version of the software initially though. But then their "lite" versions of their software were always heavily restricted.
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Old 11-21-2018, 01:55 AM   #10
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Many thanks for the most recent replies. It seems I'm not going to sort this out with just one or two clicks of the mouse. Over the next little while I'll try the things suggested and then report back with how things went.

Thanks, again, for everyone's kind help.
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Old 11-21-2018, 05:53 AM   #11
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Have you set up te ASIO Driver in the Reaper preferences?

I use a 1st gen focusrite scarlett 2i4 and with 96khz and a buffer size of 128 I get perfect latency levels for recording.

By the way: If you have applied audioeffects during recording the latency can drop dramatically! It depends on the plugin itself (some use much CPU) and on the quantity of plugins.
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Old 11-21-2018, 10:34 AM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DrGed View Post
8Mb of RAM
Well there's your problem!

To add to what Beemysch said: if you have any plugins on your tracks, check the fx browser window bottom left corner for "spls". If it's anything higher than 0/0, there will be latency added. Some plugins require latency, but a lot of them don't. I try to stick with zero-latency plugins for almost everything, to avoid this complication. After recording is complete I'll add/enable the plugins which cause latency (since it's compensated for automatically during playback anyway).

About checking your system for proper latency reporting of the audio driver, and compensating for it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzS--D765Zw
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