Ableton Forum

I have my guitar - www.slaperoo.com - connected to ableton to use effects but the delay is about a second long. I'm using a usb 1/4" cord to connect. how do I reduce the latency?

Doesnt matter what guitar you got plugged in. You want to invest in a good audio interface...

Also change your settings in the audio preferences from ableton.

Turn your buffer as low as your computer can handle using the test tone and increase the sample rate

do the tutorials and read the manual...

What do you mean by "USB 1/4-inch cord"? USB is digital, the Slaperoo (or any guitar) is analog. You need something to properly convert the analog data into a digital signal Ableton can process.

Usually this is achieved with an audio interface - a little (or big) device that plugs into your computer via USB, firewire, etc, and accepts 1/4", XLR, s/pdif, etc. It can preamp a signal to the right levels, and then digitize it and send it along to your computer, usually in under 50ms.

You can use your microphone jack with a 1/4" to 1/8" adapter so it physically fits. Problem is, you're still technically using your onboard soundcard as the interface. It's converting the analog into digital. And it usually does a pretty shitty job at it; and that's why 1 second latency is normal for that setup.

What you want to do is invest in an interface - cheap, good interfaces run close to $100, and will provide you the quality you need.

I use a zoom h4n as my interface for my guitar - not technically designed to do so, and the pre-amps aren't the best, but latency is at around 35 ms; good enough to jam with.