Continuous Delay Whilst Recording

[El-Ahrairah]

Hi,

my problem is that whenever I want to play a guitar rythm line (or whatever) over a drumtrack (I tried both wav and midi drumtracks) there will be a delay which is continously increasing. It's kind of hard to explain; at the beginning the rythm line and the drumtrack are in time, but the longer the song goes, the further the timekeys drift apart. And it's always the last recorded line that goes slower, so the drumtrack finishes first and then the rythm line.
Those are only minor timekey drifts; about 1ms in 1 second, but it messes up the whole recording and just doesn't sound right. In a two minute song I will have a timekey drift of 120ms which is pretty noticeable even to non-musicians.

Can anyone help or has anyone experienced similar problems?

My equipment is the following:

- Athlon 1800+
- Asus A7333
- Crappy sound on board for audio out
- Creative Soundblaster Audigy 2 NX 24bit USB Soundcard for recording
- GuitarPro to create drumtracks both midi and wav
- OS is Win2k
- Guitar preamp simulator which is connected to the Soundblaster
- Various recording programs, Adobe Audition, Audacity, Krystal

Thanks in advance!

[aguywithaguitar]

i had the same problem, i was recording with one soundcard and playing back through another soundcard. it turned out that the 2 soundcards were set at different sample rates so instead of fiddling with everything i just started using one of the soundcards. but ive had that problem a long time ago also, whe i was using just one sound card. i forgot how i fixed it. but i see you're using an onboard thing for audio out and a soundblaster for audio in, that would have something to do with it, most likely.

[El-Ahrairah]

Thanks, that might help. I can't record through the SOB card because it has an unfiltered input causing a high pitch hissing, so I'll give the Audigy II a try.


It didn't help, the delay is still the same... :(

[AnotherDayDreaming]

Doesn't the soundblaster have an output???? just record in through the soundblaster, then out through the outputs on the soundblaster...I'm kind of unsure why you would be messing around with onboard audio, when u have an excellent card like that... ;)

[El-Ahrairah]

Doesn't the soundblaster have an output???? just record in through the soundblaster, then out through the outputs on the soundblaster...I'm kind of unsure why you would be messing around with onboard audio, when u have an excellent card like that... ;)

It does, but as I own a 5.1 system, I thought it'd be cool to actually use it, and I can't record and use the 5.1 at the same time. Still, if I run the audio out through the Audigy, it doesn't work. :(
I didn't have the timekey problem when I used the SOB, but then I got the high-pitch hissing... I'm thinking about buying a PCI soundcard (Audiophile or alike) but it'd be cool if I could solve the problem without spending a lot of money.

[El-Ahrairah]

Anyone else got an idea?

[airborne50caliber]

ive got a related question. The other day while recording a guitarist using audacity, I had a problem. He was recording over a stereo track of drums, but this track kept stopping and starting and it obviously put him off. (I noted that the recording continued as normal, but the computer just couldn't keep up) I had all apps closed, is there anyway to avoid this?

[Vitriolic Rage]

Latency problems mang.

[moaner]

ive got a related question. The other day while recording a guitarist using audacity, I had a problem. He was recording over a stereo track of drums, but this track kept stopping and starting and it obviously put him off. (I noted that the recording continued as normal, but the computer just couldn't keep up) I had all apps closed, is there anyway to avoid this?

just plain insufficient memory.

recording in mono might help.

[Aes820]

What you are experiencing is latency.
It is caused by the time delay it takes your computer to convert your audio signal into dgital data.
Unless you can decrease your buffers right down to 0 (this may decrease your sound quality) it is unavoidable.

What I'd suggest is to burn a copy of the backing track onto a CD, as audio.
Play this track in the background (or via headphones) while recording yourself play along with it. Then, layer the two together using a program such as Cool Edit or Kristal.