Vocals Don't Match Instrumental

[Allan Love]

hey,

first time ever having this problem on reaper, or any other daw for that matter. basically, when i record my vocals, it doesn't mesh with the beat. i go back and listen to it again and for some reason, it seems as though the vocals are delayed while recording. i did a test to make sure it wasn't just my lack of talent lol but its not me. i did it again out loud without recording just to test a stack on my voice, and it is in fact delayed for some reason. i checked the bpm and it's at the standard 120. never had to adjust that in the past. thinking it might be something going on with my focusrite scarlett solo second gen, but not sure. anyone have any ideas as to anything i can try within the reaper settings to see if i can fix the issue?

thanks,

Allan Love

[martifingers]

Hi Allan. This sounds like latency to me. For a detailed general explanation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojnnP_GXNaM

For a more REAPER solution:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAWVFbtIca0 (from 8.45 on)

Bottom line is:
in the top right of the main window click on where it says "44.1KHz 24bit WAV... etc" (Your details may be slightly different). This will open up your audio device settings. The aim would be to lower the buffer setting or use direct monitoring if your hardware allows it. (This may require you to go to your particular interface control software.) As the first video says most people are happy with anything less than 10ms but experiment to see what's best for you.

[SonicAxiom]

Originally Posted by Allan Love

hey,

first time ever having this problem on reaper, or any other daw for that matter. basically, when i record my vocals, it doesn't mesh with the beat. i go back and listen to it again and for some reason, it seems as though the vocals are delayed while recording. i did a test to make sure it wasn't just my lack of talent lol but its not me. i did it again out loud without recording just to test a stack on my voice, and it is in fact delayed for some reason. i checked the bpm and it's at the standard 120. never had to adjust that in the past. thinking it might be something going on with my focusrite scarlett solo second gen, but not sure. anyone have any ideas as to anything i can try within the reaper settings to see if i can fix the issue?

thanks,

Allan Love

You should perform a latency analysis of your setup. I've written a small pdf manual of how to do it properly: http://www.audioworld.de/data/Reaper...0latencies.pdf

.

[serr]

Originally Posted by Allan Love

hey,

first time ever having this problem on reaper, or any other daw for that matter. basically, when i record my vocals, it doesn't mesh with the beat. i go back and listen to it again and for some reason, it seems as though the vocals are delayed while recording. i did a test to make sure it wasn't just my lack of talent lol but its not me. i did it again out loud without recording just to test a stack on my voice, and it is in fact delayed for some reason. i checked the bpm and it's at the standard 120. never had to adjust that in the past. thinking it might be something going on with my focusrite scarlett solo second gen, but not sure. anyone have any ideas as to anything i can try within the reaper settings to see if i can fix the issue?

thanks,

Allan Love

Did you change your block size and forget?
That would do it.

Did you switch to a different sample rate for this project?
FYI, depending on weather or not you use the 'use driver reported latency' in your latency offset correction (and also depending on what the audio interface driver does at different sample rates), the offset can change with different sample rates.

Revisit your latency offset setting. Run loopback tests at the different sample rates and take note.

On my system with my MOTU interfaces I find that using the 'driver reported latency' + a manual offset vs. purely a manual offset "normalizes" the offset for me between different sample rates. Let's me leave it set the same for different sample rates.

Making an aggregate device of multiple interfaces can change the latency offset too.

[RDBOIS]

Originally Posted by serr

Did you change your block size...?
That would do it.

This.

Set it as low as you can go ==> until the playback starts to stutter and then put back up a hair or two. I'm my set up this is normally around 200.

I think I also disable most FXs while I track vocals and/or I render a headphone mix then create a brand new Reaper project with only the headphone track and record vocals there. Then once they are done I render them and bring them back in the main project. If you don't have a powerful computer and/or not set up right you may need to be ease back on the CPU demand while you do delicate stuff.

Good luck.

[serr]

And of course monitoring live inputs for overdubbing using a mixer built into your audio interface instead of live through the computer is still SOP for any slower computers not up to live sound specs (or pretty much any computer pre 2004).

Don't set for low latency unless you both truly have a need to run live audio through the computer in real time and have a fast enough computer. Another good reason to set it high (eg. 1024 samples) and leave it for post work is so you don't have to manage a moving target for that latency offset for recording overdubs.

[Judders]

Yeah, the Scarlett has direct monitoring. Much better to use that.

[RDBOIS]

Originally Posted by SonicAxiom

You should perform a latency analysis of your setup. I've written a small pdf manual of how to do it properly: http://www.audioworld.de/data/Reaper...0latencies.pdf

.

Hello

I just read your document. I'm going to try out your method.

I'm curious about this ReaInsert thing. I know I have various latency values for different things I plug into my USB (for example the Wifi headphone with microphone is terrible, and I have a few ms with my audio interface).

The instructions say nothing about ASIO and BLOCK settings. I wonder... seems like these need to be optimized, no?

[Jaake]

Make sure you're using ASIO drivers and you haven't accidentally switched to DirectSound or WaveOut. That sometimes happens to me with my focusrite interface.