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Audio Recording Delay Lag

Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2017 4:38 pm
by rean1mator
Hi All,
I'm trying to figure out what the best method is to compensate for the slight delay in audio recording when I record my rytm and eurorack synth tracks to to Ableton Live.

From my search of the forum, it maybe sounds like if you turn monitoring off for the track you are recording is the solution? But wanted to confirm.

I don't want to have to go into each audio track in my audio editor software and trim the beginning of each track just to make it line up properly.

While, it's probably not too hard for drum loops, synth tracks will be a huge pain.

I'm recording in 48khz, 128 buffer size. Do I just need to up the sample rate and lower the buffer size or are there other methods?

In the past I've always had issues with clipping when I record in 96khkz and 64 buffer using my Motu 16a. I think due to shitty motu drivers.

Re: Audio Recording Delay Lag

Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2017 5:48 pm
by manasseh
Yes, you should turn off monitoring and live will appropriately compensate for the audio device buffer delay.

Quoting Ableton manual, page 666 - "Do not enable track monitoring if you are recording MIDI while listening directly to a hardware device such as an external synthesizer (as opposed to listening to the device‘s audio through Live via the External Instrument device). Likewise, disable track monitoring when recording MIDI data that is generated by another MIDI device (such as a drum machine). When monitoring is enabled, Live adds latency to compensate for playthrough jitter. Therefore, it is important to only enable monitoring when actually playing through."

Same applies for Audio.

Re: Audio Recording Delay Lag

Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2017 7:28 pm
by rean1mator
great, that was my understanding. thanks for the confirmation.
manasseh wrote:Yes, you should turn off monitoring and live will appropriately compensate for the audio device buffer delay.

Quoting Ableton manual, page 666 - "Do not enable track monitoring if you are recording MIDI while listening directly to a hardware device such as an external synthesizer (as opposed to listening to the device‘s audio through Live via the External Instrument device). Likewise, disable track monitoring when recording MIDI data that is generated by another MIDI device (such as a drum machine). When monitoring is enabled, Live adds latency to compensate for playthrough jitter. Therefore, it is important to only enable monitoring when actually playing through."

Same applies for Audio.

Re: Audio Recording Delay Lag

Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2017 3:11 am
by rean1mator
I still cannot fix this issue even with turning monitoring off. even bumping my sample rate upt to 96khz 64 buffer size does absolutely nothing.

I ran some tests in digital performer 9 and then imported the audio file into live and performer records what looks to be exactly at the start point of the recording.

Is this in inherent issue with LIve? I've seen lots of users trying to fix this issue and not much about whetehr they were able to resolve this or not.

This is a huge issue for me as i'm mostly hardware based in struments that i need to record in to Live.

Re: Audio Recording Delay Lag

Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2017 7:37 pm
by manasseh
Hey there, can you describe your problem more thoroughly?

You are record the audio from external modules, disabling ableton (OFF) monitoring option, thereby you are listening through the hardware zero-latency monitor of your soundcard, correct?
Live correctly compensates the incurred buffer input/output audio latency then. There is no bug, you can personally do the tests yourself.

For a demonstration purpose, let's say I set a huge ASIO buffer size - 2048 samples on my soundcard ASIO buffer. That gives 47 ms in, and 47 ms out latency. If I record a MIDI track with some vst synth/drums, the main contributor the is the output latency (47 ms Out. vs ~1 ms for the midi signal to be registered). If i'm registering Audio (let's say a guitar monitored through a vst guitar sim) I will have the full 47+47 ms of round-trip latency.

Now, imagine I record a MIDI/Audio track with monitoring set to AUTO (same applies to IN) in live - i'm compensating by playing very early to be on time with such a big buffer size - Ableton correctly records my notes the way I effectively hear them (I hit them on time with the metronome, after some practice).
If I set monitoring to OFF, and do another recording, this time with no delay - through some kind direct hardware monitoring - Ableton effectively displaces those notes (earlier) according the buffer size incurred latency, also effectively record what you hear.

I hope this helped.

Re: Audio Recording Delay Lag

Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2017 7:46 pm
by rean1mator
I understand that is what Ableton is supposed to do but that is not occuring for me.

When I record, let's say a 4/4 kick drum from my rytm, after i record there is a slight delay before the audio gets recorded into ableton such that the first Kick in teh loop which hits on the 1 doesn't hit exactly on the 1. So when I loop it, it's not exactly in sync.

I"ve tried different sample rate and buffer size and it makes no difference. In order to clean it up, I need to crop the beginning of the loop in an audio editor to make sure the loop lines up properly. I don't have this isssue in Digital Performer. When I record the same 4/4 sequence into DP, it's almost spot on. At worst when i bump my sample rate to 96khz and buffer to 64 i should see some level of improvement, but I don't see any.

manasseh wrote:Hey there, can you describe your problem more thoroughly?

You are record the audio from external modules, disabling ableton (OFF) monitoring option, thereby you are listening through the hardware zero-latency monitor of your soundcard, correct?
Live correctly compensates the incurred buffer input/output audio latency then. There is no bug, you can personally do the tests yourself.

For a demonstration purpose, let's say I set a huge ASIO buffer size - 2048 samples on my soundcard ASIO buffer. That gives 47 ms in, and 47 ms out latency. If I record a MIDI track with some vst synth/drums, the main contributor the is the output latency (47 ms Out. vs ~1 ms for the midi signal to be registered). If i'm registering Audio (let's say a guitar monitored through a vst guitar sim) I will have the full 47+47 ms of roundtrip latency.

Now, imagine I record a MIDI/Audio track with monitoring set to AUTO (same applies to IN) in live - i'm compensating by playing very early to be on time with such a big buffer size - Ableton correctly records my notes the way I effectively hear them (I hit them on time with the metronome, after some practice).
If I set monitoring to OFF, and do another recording, this time with no delay - through some kind direct hardware monitoring - the result is that aAleton effectly displaces those notes (earlier) according the buffer size incurred latency, also effectively record what you hear.

I hope this helped.

Re: Audio Recording Delay Lag

Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2017 7:51 pm
by manasseh
Let me see if I the under problem the first kick not 'hitting on 1'.
You see a timing discrepancy between the 1.1.1 grid downbeat and the kick right?
Is it a quantized 4/4 kick pre sequenced on the drum module? Are you synchronizing through midi clock to the audio interface?

Re: Audio Recording Delay Lag

Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2017 8:34 pm
by rean1mator
Yes on timing discrepancy, rytm sequence of the kick quantized via 16steps sequencer onbaord midi synced to Ableton via USB.
manasseh wrote:Let me see if I the under problem the first kick not 'hitting on 1'.
You see a timing discrepancy between the 1.1.1 grid downbeat and the kick right?
Is it a quantized 4/4 kick pre sequenced on the drum module? Are you synchronizing through midi clock to the audio interface?

Re: Audio Recording Delay Lag

Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2017 9:00 am
by manasseh
Yeah, that's definitely weird...
Good Luck!

Re: Audio Recording Delay Lag

Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2017 10:02 am
by fishmonkey
have you done the Driver Error Compensation test?

Re: Audio Recording Delay Lag

Posted: Fri Jun 16, 2017 6:03 pm
by rean1mator
So I figured it out, I turned on teh track delays to show and adjusted that to 9.75ms and now the recording syncs to the very beginning. yeeehaaaw.

Re: Audio Recording Delay Lag

Posted: Sun Jun 18, 2017 12:51 pm
by Stromkraft
rean1mator wrote:So I figured it out, I turned on teh track delays to show and adjusted that to 9.75ms and now the recording syncs to the very beginning. yeeehaaaw.
Which is a roundabout way to offset. But if it works for this track use it. I wouldn't rely on this though.