Ableton Forum

Hi everyone,

This is kind of a newb question, but I really need someone to confirm this. How do you get the exact latency value when you record an instrument through an audio interface?

For example, if I record a guitar, the printed audio clip will show a slight delay (no, it's not me being sloppy haha).
So far, I just moved the playhead and put it where I felt it should be, but obviously this is not a serious and reliable solution.
I think I can get the value by checking the Parameter > Audio panel and use the "General Latency", but I'm not sure if this is it. (Then I could use this value in Track Delay in the Arrangement view)
How about plugins used on the track? For example, I know Amplitube adds 0.15 ms of latency, but after experimenting a little, it doesn't seem to impact the actual recorded clip. Should I worry about these values?

In Help, a window comes up on the right side of Live.

Browsing in there you should be able to find details on setting preferences and measuring your ideal delay compensation amount.

yur2die4 wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 10, 2021 7:52 am

Just read the manual

Alright, thanks for your input. If you know the answer, you could have just told me, it'd have taken you just as many caracters, no need to be a cock (and no, I didn't find the answer in the Help section).

We do not tolerate personal attacks on this forum, if you cannot follow the community guidelines you will not be allowed to use the forums.

I would not change the GLOBAL settings!

1.
Activate "latency compensation" (its default, but proove this in: menue> options).

2.
record a short clip (without any atack, fx....) on the live click.

3.
zooom deep in, figure out how much this delay is.

4.
MINUS-delay this track by this value.

5.
THIS will neither affect your record audition, nor the "wrong" view. But it guarantees a correct PLAYBACK. NEVER "correct" a such clip with live-editor or cut the "silence" in in your external Editor.

6.
This is maybe not the most comfortable way, but the best i know. It works correct if you KEEP in this track and routed to master. With sends /special routing/grouping.... that could be very complicated... If you wish so, create a copy of even single clip/the whole track.... set delay to zero and MANUALLY edit each clip to "zero".

satansabyss wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 10, 2021 11:17 am

yur2die4 wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 10, 2021 7:52 am

Just read the manual

Alright, thanks for your input. If you know the answer, you could have just told me, it'd have taken you just as many caracters, no need to be a cock (and no, I didn't find the answer in the Help section).

I apologize. I tried carefully not to use the term Manual because the manual and help are two different entities. I can’t give you a magic number. That wouldn’t make sense.

But within Help it explains what is happening, why, and how to measure it with a handy Live set.


BUT. It seems the above advice might be a bit more clean cut. Though you’re still basically doing the measuring. And it’s easier measuring with the click that they give you in the Live set within the help menu.

Edit: in the Help View table on the right, make sure you are at Home.

Scroll down to show All built in lessons.

In that table of contents, at the bottom is ‘Hardware Setup’.

Within that is ‘Driver Error Compensation’.

yur2die4 wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 10, 2021 6:17 pm

I apologize. I tried carefully not to use the term Manual because the manual and help are two different entities.

No worries, it's just that this kind of answers is so common on internet and then you start wondering what's the purpose of a forum. Of course all the answers are in the book, but it's nice to communicate with other human being too (I too walk people through their issues when I have time to kill).

nennmichwieduwillst wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 10, 2021 4:39 pm

I would not change the GLOBAL settings!

Thanks a lot for your answer, I will try this this afternoon.

satansabyss wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 10, 2021 6:27 am

Hi everyone,

This is kind of a newb question, but I really need someone to confirm this. How do you get the exact latency value when you record an instrument through an audio interface?

For example, if I record a guitar, the printed audio clip will show a slight delay (no, it's not me being sloppy haha).
So far, I just moved the playhead and put it where I felt it should be, but obviously this is not a serious and reliable solution.
I think I can get the value by checking the Parameter > Audio panel and use the "General Latency", but I'm not sure if this is it. (Then I could use this value in Track Delay in the Arrangement view)
How about plugins used on the track? For example, I know Amplitube adds 0.15 ms of latency, but after experimenting a little, it doesn't seem to impact the actual recorded clip. Should I worry about these values?

There are a few different forms of delays.

Recording delay compensation is when audio device isn't reporting delay correctly to host and cause a timing delay after recording. Ableton has a tutorial for fine tuning this.

That said I haven't had this issue in years. All of the interfaces I've used seems to handle this correctly however this was a big issue back in the day with some older interfaces.


The latency Amplitube is reporting is tiny and probably isn't noticeable. I generally don't start noticing Latency until round-trip gets more than 10ms. For recording/playing live audio while monitoring plugins effects is about the most Latency demanding task of a DAW.


Most guitar effects though will have a low latency since users rely on them to record live audio. Some mastering processors though can have a high amount of latency and isn't geared for live audio.

But all of this depends on your interface and buffer settings, so your plugin latency chain will be in addition to your round-trip latency. What is your round-trip latency.

Also keep in mind some folks are more sensitive to latency than others, but most people don't notice anything under 10 ms for round-trip + plugin chain.