Monitoring latency problem with Ableton Live

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Monitoring latency problem with Ableton Live

Postby kid_chameleon » Fri Mar 31, 2006 9:24 pm

Hey Malcolm (and everyone else here) nice to see ya! Jon Goud here ...


I recently started using Ableton Live (5.0.3) and I absolutely am in love with it, but I'm running into a snafoo:

When my tracks are armed I'm getting bad monitoring latency. My signal chain is as follows:

mic > behringer Eurorack UB1202 > tape out (stereo RCA to 1/8 inch) to the line in on my comp.

I'm using whatever stock soundcard came with the comp, as well as whatever drivers came with that. I'm also encountering the same problem with Sound Forge 8.0 - but I didn't have the same problem when I was using Sound Forge 7.

Is this something I can fix without buying a new soundcard?
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Hey Jon,

Postby Malcolm Boyce » Sat Apr 01, 2006 12:59 am

Jon,

Glad you found my little space here. I hope with enough folks joining in, we can get a cool place to talk shop, with a local vibe.

Latency can be affected by many things. Hardware, drivers, software, memory, and processor and bus speed are the main ones. It's usually a case of optimizing all of the above for a given setup. This is why it's usually hard to find concise information on how to troubleshoot a rig, because combinations are unique, and fixes are unique to the setups you are using. Most of the "Help" files consist of info like: "If running with a low number doesn't work, try running at a higher number." REALLY?!?!>>>

If you can't get at any settings for your sound card, look in the software you are using. Sound Forge will have a buffer setting, in the preferences/wave tab, that should adjust the amount of latency you experience. As you probably know, the lower the latency, the larger the strain on CPU and memory, so it's a balancing act. I have not used Ableton Live, but it probably has a buffer setting that will allow you to adjust things as well.

Different drivers for your sound card in question could also help. Even with my MOTU, using the suggested WDM drivers with Sonar caused the thing to flail hard. It took another user's suggestion of using the MOTU ASIO drivers and bam, never looked back. Totally different rig. Check and see if you have the option of newer drivers, or different drivers.

Hope some of this helps, and if you have any more info, pop in and let us know...

Anyone else know specifics about Ableton Live? Mike?
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Postby fish » Wed May 03, 2006 7:42 am

Hey cats!

Sorry Mal, I don't know anything about Live specifically (but there definately would be a setting to adjust buffers), but I would think the latency issue is solely down to the soundcard in this case. Most/all generic (stock) soundcards drivers are very poorly implemented and are incapable of using ASIO or WDM. If your card is of the soundblaster live persuasion though, do a google search for "KX drivers". If not, search out ASIO4ALL, this is a wrapper that allows most cards to run some form of ASIO which will allow you to lower your buffer setting and acheive better latency.

EDIT: I got this from Ableton's website


When I adjust the "Overall Latency" setting in Live, it does not seem to have any effect. Why?
The "Overall Latency" setting is directly coupled to the "Monitor through Live" option in the Preferences Audio tab. Please be sure that "Monitor through Live" is set to "no" for latency compensation to take affect. See next entry below for details of when to use this feature.

When do I need to adjust the "Overall Latency" setting in Live?
Suppose you are monitoring your voice or an instrument through an external device instead of Live (you have the "Monitor through Live" switch set to "no"). Now, as you sing or play along with the metronome or clips already in the Set, you are in fact playing along with "late" audio, because it takes some milliseconds for the audio to travel from the CPU to the audio outputs. This delay is referred to as "latency". Because you are hearing the audio from the program late, the audio you are recording into the program arrives late with respect to the program's internal timing. Live automatically compensates for this error by moving the recorded audio in song time so that you normally don't have to worry about any of this. If the recording you make sounds "untight" despite Live's effort to compensate for latency, then the audio hardware driver is probably the culprit: It is reporting an inaccurate latency value to Live. You can manually correct Live's latency assumption by adjusting the "Overall Latency" control in the Audio Preferences. The manual describes how to do this in the "Computer Audio Issues" chapter.
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