Using Hardware synths without latency

[bishbo2000]

I've owned a few hardware synths over the years and I have always struggled with latency. Running a project in Ableton Use plugins for drums and most bits. Then I would use an external instrument to send midi over usb to a hardware synth, and record the result in an audio track.

I can't do this without latency. It makes it unusable. I have bought and sold so many bloody synths because I get so frustrated wasting time trying to solve the latency issue.
Then I see someone with a room full of hardware jamming out and I think, what am I doing wrong??

I've done the midi latency thing, I've messed about with buffer sizes, delay compensations, everything. Yes when I montor the signal live it is in sync, but recording is late.

Is it possible to run midi out of Ableton and record the audio without a delay between the incoming sounds and the sounds within the project (plugins), or will it always be an issue.

When I see other people do it I assume a few scenarios
1. They are sequencing all their gear externally, and all sounds are coming from external gear.
2. They could be running midi out of Ableton, but all audio is generated outside the box, so all synths do not have to sync with sounds generated by plugins.
3. Some sounds are generated ITB, but are not sent to the master channel, instead they are routed to some external kit, and received back into Ableton in sync with all the other OTB gear.

Really appreciate some help with this from people using both ITB and OTB.

Peace and love

[benmuetsch]

Get yourself an Audio Interface with realtime input monitoring and listen/record thru this.

[pottering]

https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/artic ... -with-Live

[miyaru]

Given that you record through a decent audio interface, and still have some latency try to adjust the start- and endpoint of a clip. If you know the latency value, you can use this info to adjust it everytime you record an external synth.

For this reason I stopped using external gear quiet a while ago. Still have some gear, but it is not in use anymore……..