Always a 30 ms latency when audio clip is recorded (Solved)

[nc2010]

Hi,
I have exactly the same problem than this:

MIDI goes out from Ableton MIDI-track through USB-cable to a MOTU Midiexpress 128, from there throgh midi-cable to a synthesizer. Audio goes out from synthesizer through audiocable into FireFace UCX, from there through USB into Ableton audiotrack. All audio-clips I record that way are 20-30ms OFF the grid! But with my audio-buffer-settings it should be only around 7-8ms!
Why is that and how to improve it?

It seems no help if I play with the track-delay-settings (just below every volume-fader), I cannot hear any audible difference when changing these settings.

For me it's:

Ableton MIDI track ---> MOTU 828 mk3 ---MIDI---> synth ---audio---> MOTU 828 mk3 --> Ableton

Every clip always has a 30 ms silence beginning / latency. So it's all the time off the grid, and I have to manually recrop every clip.

I've tried everything:

• Monitoring off

• Options > Reduced latency when monitoring (should not change anything since monitoring is off)

• Options > Delay compensation

• play with track delays (little setting below each fader), both positive or negative values ; I tried the same for Master track

• Preferences > Audio > Driver Error compensation (I tried both +30 and -30ms, +60, -60ms, etc.)

• Preferences > MIDI > Output > little arrow on the Output device > MIDI clock sync delay > +30 or -30 ms

I think I've tried everything but it's always the same thing:



Of course I'm on ASIO with lowest latency, and the synth envelope has a very short attack, etc.
It's the same with every synth / sampler / any external instrument etc.

Any idea?

[gbert]

Do you have any plugins loaded onto any other tracks, including the master track? And this question applies even if the plugins are disabled. I’ve seen a large delay when there is any other delay-causing plugin on any track in the project. This happens even if the plugin is active. For example, do you have an instance of Ozone loaded to your master track, even if the Ozone instance is disabled?

[nc2010]

No, no plugin. It's an empty project except one track armed for recording.

So the consequence is currently that I have to manually crop all clips after recording...

[jonljacobi]

MIDI does have lag. I don’t know about USB, but standard serial MIDI was about 5 ms each leg last I heard. Doesn’t seem like it should all add up to 30ms, but...

What’s the latency when you just play the synth?

[nc2010]

Maybe it comes from MIDI...
When I play synth, the latency is nearly 0 (monitoring off), and maybe ~10ms or 15ms if monitoring is on

[gbert]

Do you have another DAW you can try to see if it’s happening there also? That would rule out anything related to the audio interface and external hardware.

On that note, make sure there are no DSP effects running on that audio input channel on the MOTU.

[nc2010]

Solved!

In fact I used a specific routing inside Ableton (tracks rerouted to a group, and then this group used as an input for other tracks a complex thing, and this introduced latency).

Now solved by using this setting on my MOTU:



Now I can enable all inputs on MIX BUS 3, and use this "Mix of all inputs" as input 13/14 in Ableton. Benefit: If I choose 13/14 as input in Ableton, I get every instrument connected to my MOTU arriving in this input

Tested, and now, no more latency.

It was a phone call worth having to the (great) MOTU tech support phone number in USA!

[[jur]]

That's very interesting.
I never took the time to study this Mix thing on my Ultralite as I thought it was mainly for standalone use.
But what you just said triggers my curiosity a lot.
I do use the channels 13/14 (or S/PDIF 1-2) as a way to sample things from e.g the internet into Live.
I just learn an interesting thing today, thank you

Cool that you've found a workaround but that still doesn't explain why you had this much latency.

[nc2010]

Cool that you've found a workaround but that still doesn't explain why you had this much latency.

Here are more details:

Abandoned method (that caused the latency):



Solution: