Problems Using Ableton for Recording Audio

maximum_perlich · Post by **maximum_perlich** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 1:17 am

Hey. Total newbie to Ableton and computer recording.
So, I'm trying to use Ableton in the same way I used my old cassette 4-track.
I want to record guitar, bass, drums, vocals all to the Ableton click-track.
The problem I'm having is latency issues. I've got a new macbook and I just bought an audio interface (Focusrite Saffire). I can view the setup of the audio interface through the Ableton preferences and it will tell me the length of the latency.
Is there a way to adjust the recorded track in Ableton to compensate for the latency. I know the exact latency time but I find myself manually dragging the waveform trying to line it up in time with the click-track which is just silly.
I know I'm just missing something because there are tons of people that use macbooks for recording that don't have these problems.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Tim Moore · Post by **Tim Moore** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 5:42 am

I have the same problem - about 40 ms latency during recording or resampling (Live 6.0.7).
As i can remember there was no such issue in earlier versions of Live untill 6.0.5 or am I mistaken.

maximum_perlich · Post by **maximum_perlich** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 3:17 pm

I'm using Live Lite 5 that came with my audio interface and I still experience the latency issues.

4.33 · Post by **4.33** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 4:12 pm

max, make sure to choose your Saffire ASIO driver and NOT anything else in the Preferences.

maximum_perlich · Post by **maximum_perlich** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 4:44 pm

4.33 wrote:max, make sure to choose your Saffire ASIO driver and NOT anything else in the Preferences.

I think I chose that but I'll check it again when I get home tonight.

nate_D · Post by **nate_D** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 8:21 pm

i think i had a problem like that before i completely setup my tascam fw-1884 for input/output along with mackie control and that pretty much got rid of all my latency issues. for some reason though my bass still seems to be a little bit off but i think thats because of one of the processors its running through (kosmos pro).

Ruso · Post by **Ruso** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 10:01 pm

on top of selecting the asio driver for recording/playback you have to adjust the settings for it aswell... for example in my case I get the lowest latency when running in 96.000 khz with 16 bit settings for audio playback inside ableton...

also when using asio you have to set up the latency setting which is what gets rid of all the latency.... here's how you find the optimal setting for your card:

stick a loop into ableton and just have it play over and over again. You could also use ableton's test tone function(in preferences) but that's really annoying sounding lol...

anyways now go to the audio setup settings to be more specific the magical latency slider(either inside ableton or inside the asio driver configuration window which you can bring up by hitting hardware setup within audio config)

Start with a higher number first, close settings hit play in ableton.... if audio sounds clearn with no interruptions, then go back to settings move the bar down.

when you get to the really low settings there's a really fine line you have to find. The optimum line is when there are no crackles or pops in the audio and it sounds clearn and doesn't pause for a split second. Sometimes even when you do find it, you'll notice that after working for say 5 minutes you will get a little pause in the audio or a little pop, this means you need to turn it up just a little.

Some drivers for some sound cards are very picky and either don't have the right settings or block you from changing the latency on the driver. In that case I would try using the Asio4All driver which is avalable free for everyone, just google for it.

This should get you down to at most 15 ms.

I've gotten sattisfactory performance at 96.000khz with very very minimal pops and crackles(once every several minutes) at 4ms of delay. But running at that low of latency can be dangerous(for instance if you do live performances and audio buffer overloads (as you can guess this has happened to me)).

anyways good luck.

maximum_perlich · Post by **maximum_perlich** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 1:00 am

wow ruso, thanks for the info.
I'll check all that out tonight. I was messing with the audio preferences but I never took the time to determine the minimal latency to retain sound quality. So, I have great sound quality but the delay was a lot more than 15ms.