Vocal latency issue while recording

[luckykat]

Hi Ableton community. Newbie producer here. I'm trying to record vocals for the first time & am struggling.

Whenever I sing into the mic, there is about a 1 second delay until it comes through headphones. It completely throws me out of sync then I spend too long quantizing and trying to fix it.

I have tried hitting the "reduce latency when monitoring option" and playing with latency buffering in "Preferences" but cannot solve the problem. Can you help?

[jlgrimes]

Hi Ableton community. Newbie producer here. I'm trying to record vocals for the first time & am struggling.

Whenever I sing into the mic, there is about a 1 second delay until it comes through headphones. It completely throws me out of sync then I spend too long quantizing and trying to fix it.

I have tried hitting the "reduce latency when monitoring option" and playing with latency buffering in "Preferences" but cannot solve the problem. Can you help?

What OS and drivers are you using?

On PC you need to be using ASIO.

On Mac you need to be using Core Audio.

From there you have two options:


1. Reduce buffer size as low as reasonably possible. Usually 64 or 128 are good options. Your total round-trip latency in Ableton's preferences should be close to your max latency. If its under 10ms, you are doing great.

2. Some interfaces have a direct monitoring setting. This will allow you to monitor your input with no latency and record at any buffer setting. The drawback is you won't be able to monitor audio with effects. You will need to turn off input monitoring here.

[luckykat]

Hi Ableton community. Newbie producer here. I'm trying to record vocals for the first time & am struggling.

Whenever I sing into the mic, there is about a 1 second delay until it comes through headphones. It completely throws me out of sync then I spend too long quantizing and trying to fix it.

I have tried hitting the "reduce latency when monitoring option" and playing with latency buffering in "Preferences" but cannot solve the problem. Can you help?

What OS and drivers are you using?

On PC you need to be using ASIO.

On Mac you need to be using Core Audio.

From there you have two options:


1. Reduce buffer size as low as reasonably possible. Usually 64 or 128 are good options. Your total round-trip latency in Ableton's preferences should be close to your max latency. If its under 10ms, you are doing great.

2. Some interfaces have a direct monitoring setting. This will allow you to monitor your input with no latency and record at any buffer setting. The drawback is you won't be able to monitor audio with effects. You will need to turn off input monitoring here.

PC (new HP Enxy 360x) with ASIO. I'll try #1 and #2. Key is to have the monitoring in headphones. Having recorded on the other side of the window, ability to monitor with reverb is a crucial confidence booster for singer. Thanks for your help!

[stevenpalominoo]

Ableton monitoring sucks but here's some things I've done to help minimize it or get around it...

1. Set processing on a group instead of a track itself and then drag the recording into that track's group on playback to listen to effects. What I do is have something like this:

Vox Group
--Recording/Monitoring Track
--Processing Group (contains all cpu intensive plugins etc.)
----Vox Track

I'd arm/monitor the Monitoring Track and then drag down to Vox Track for playback..

Just a note, if you mouse over the title of any vst it'll tell you on the bottom left status bar it's latency.. you could select all of the ones with the highest latency, group them (command+g), and then assign a key command (I have "\" assigned, key map mode is cmd+k) to toggle on and off that heavy group of effects just for recording and then toggle it back on for playback.

Any combination of these things and anything else could help you find a good workflow for your way of thinking.. a lot of people have templates for vocal tracks/takes and lower latency things but it's finding what makes most sense to you...

Honestly though it comes down to the fact that monitoring is quite bad in Ableton and is a weak point.. hopefully they take a better look at it in the near future.

[jlgrimes]

Ableton monitoring sucks but here's some things I've done to help minimize it or get around it...

1. Set processing on a group instead of a track itself and then drag the recording into that track's group on playback to listen to effects. What I do is have something like this:

Vox Group
--Recording/Monitoring Track
--Processing Group (contains all cpu intensive plugins etc.)
----Vox Track

I'd arm/monitor the Monitoring Track and then drag down to Vox Track for playback..

Just a note, if you mouse over the title of any vst it'll tell you on the bottom left status bar it's latency.. you could select all of the ones with the highest latency, group them (command+g), and then assign a key command (I have "\" assigned, key map mode is cmd+k) to toggle on and off that heavy group of effects just for recording and then toggle it back on for playback.

Any combination of these things and anything else could help you find a good workflow for your way of thinking.. a lot of people have templates for vocal tracks/takes and lower latency things but it's finding what makes most sense to you...

Honestly though it comes down to the fact that monitoring is quite bad in Ableton and is a weak point.. hopefully they take a better look at it in the near future.

How is monitoring better in other DAWS?

[stevenpalominoo]

How is monitoring better in other DAWS?

One way is other DAWs let you disable plugins to save on latency. While you can disable a plugin in Ableton and save on processing, the latency will still be processed. It's part of Lives performance paradigm. Same reason there's minimal hiccups/glitches when dragging in plugins/inserts.

[jlgrimes]

How is monitoring better in other DAWS?

One way is other DAWs let you disable plugins to save on latency. While you can disable a plugin in Ableton and save on processing, the latency will still be processed. It's part of Lives performance paradigm. Same reason there's minimal hiccups/glitches when dragging in plugins/inserts.

I believe there is a Reduced Latency while monitoring option, that said I dont know how much that would help you and what the side effect is.

[Mark Williams]

Without lnowing if your using an Audio Interface, but if so use Direct monitoring within that, and turn off monitoring within Ableton.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT5mD2Zd7F8&t=13s

[stevenpalominoo]

I believe there is a Reduced Latency while monitoring option, that said I don't know how much that would help you and what the side effect is.

Yes. The problem is reduced latency still has latency the only workaround is to monitor a dry signal from an interface or remove everything from the current track or master that causes significant latency.. not to mention you can't just turn it off because although cpu isn't used, Ableton still adds latency..

[stevenpalominoo]

Without lnowing if your using an Audio Interface, but if so use Direct monitoring within that, and turn off monitoring within Ableton.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT5mD2Zd7F8&t=13s

yeah.. it's just unfortunate because if I want to add guitar effects that are slightly intensive I can't without latency and playing with effects can change the mood/groove than when you're playing with a dry signal.. it's just unfortunate..

[Mark Williams]

Record without any fx, you can always add them after.

[luckykat]

Ableton monitoring sucks but here's some things I've done to help minimize it or get around it...

1. Set processing on a group instead of a track itself and then drag the recording into that track's group on playback to listen to effects. What I do is have something like this:

Vox Group
--Recording/Monitoring Track
--Processing Group (contains all cpu intensive plugins etc.)
----Vox Track

I'd arm/monitor the Monitoring Track and then drag down to Vox Track for playback..

Just a note, if you mouse over the title of any vst it'll tell you on the bottom left status bar it's latency.. you could select all of the ones with the highest latency, group them (command+g), and then assign a key command (I have "\" assigned, key map mode is cmd+k) to toggle on and off that heavy group of effects just for recording and then toggle it back on for playback.

Any combination of these things and anything else could help you find a good workflow for your way of thinking.. a lot of people have templates for vocal tracks/takes and lower latency things but it's finding what makes most sense to you...

Honestly though it comes down to the fact that monitoring is quite bad in Ableton and is a weak point.. hopefully they take a better look at it in the near future.

Thanks for this. I like the key assignment idea to optimize workflow. I'll give it a go!

[luckykat]

How is monitoring better in other DAWS?

One way is other DAWs let you disable plugins to save on latency. While you can disable a plugin in Ableton and save on processing, the latency will still be processed. It's part of Lives performance paradigm. Same reason there's minimal hiccups/glitches when dragging in plugins/inserts.

I believe there is a Reduced Latency while monitoring option, that said I dont know how much that would help you and what the side effect is.

I've tried selecting that but it doesn't seem to have too much effect. I've been playing with the settings and reducing the latency time so will give it another crack with the vocals soon and report back. Appreciate the help!

[Mister Natural]

I've found considerable latency in the past being from my(your?)interface usb driver
latest gen(shoutout MOTU) of these devices offer very low buffer setting w/latency well under 10ms(my machine<5) - without removing verb from the track monitoring/send
Both direct monitor at the interface and roundtrip monitor the verbed vocal track thru headphone to singer
works great
peace

[luckykat]

I've found considerable latency in the past being from my(your?)interface usb driver
latest gen(shoutout MOTU) of these devices offer very low buffer setting w/latency well under 10ms(my machine<5) - without removing verb from the track monitoring/send
Both direct monitor at the interface and roundtrip monitor the verbed vocal track thru headphone to singer
works great
peace

Never thought about the USB driver being the culprit. Thanks for raising this point. It's a yeti blue from a few years back so that could be the reason.