Ableton Forum

Okay...

The problem I have is, when I plug my guitar lead into my pre-amp/interface, I activate/arm the track in Ableton and when I'm playing through into my software, I can't hear a clear signal from the instrument without a very small but NOTICEABLE amount of delay/lag/latency when I play, which is a bit off putting when recording longer takes..

Has anyone one had this problem or similar, or knows a solution?

Any help would be much appreciated!
Thank you!

Two things: If your latency is too high, you buffer may be too high. Also, under "options" you can select "reduced latency while monitoring"

On some projects, I have to use one of those even though I have very low latency (not sure why live does that)

Look at my specs below to see what/how I'm running.

Cheers for getting back to me so quickly, I've since tried the reduced latency option but I'm still getting the slightest delay when DI'ing my guitar + bass.

Not sure what else to try :/

What is your buffer set at? Are you using ASIO?

if you are monitoring through Live then for the smallest audible delay you want to have your system setup with the lowest buffer size and highest sample rate that it can manage without glitching. some audio interfaces and their drivers also have lower latency than others. i.e. a faster computer with a good interface helps a lot.

also, if you are using Live effects or plugins on the guitar signal then they will cause extra latency, some more than others.

finally, you can avoid the latency altogether by direct monitoring your guitar signal from your audio interface, most interfaces have this as an option. what this means is that you will be hearing the signal before it gets to Live, however of course you can't hear any Live effects if you use this method.

Some interfaces have a basic effects set to direct monitor like explained above. So you will have reverb, eq, compression etc, all done on the interface with little/no latency.
Presonus and Focusrite are two makers that have this, I am sure there are others.

I play guitar/bass all the time with virtually no latency. 48k/128 buffer (though on the focusrite I do have the "lowest" latency checked) and it's fine. Maybe 7ms round trip? You can check in the preferences to see what kinda latency is showing.

So again, my guesses are

-not running asio
-buffer too hight (1024 would be way too high)
-using a M4L or something that isn't compensated correctly
-any combination of the above

I used the cheapest Line 6 USB interface and had zero latency. Must have had direct monitoring or something. That's all I know - excuse my ignorance on the subject.