delay between tracks- driving me insane!

[hannah]

okay, seeing as you all seem like a clever bunch (and i, well, not so much) i was hoping you could help me out here

i'm basically just starting to record stuff, keeping it simple for now, voice and acoustic guitar, and have zero budget. for my birthday i've just been given a samson co1u mic (i.e bypasses the whole ext mixer, which eventually i'll invest in but cant afford to right now, being a student on a diet of bread n beans) and i'm using ableton live 4.0.1 which seems pretty simple to use on my windows laptop.

so, i have no problem laying down the first track, i've got the guitar sounding nice and i'm pretty impressed with the microphone. my problem is the delay i get when i try and record a second track over the top. i've played around with the input and output buffer (although to be honest i don't know what i'm doing), but the delay between tracks is still noticeable. as you can imagine it's kind of annoying when the guitar and vocals are fine by themselves, but together, completely out of sync!

any advice would be MUCH APPRECIATED! seriously, i bet it's something really simple and i really am going to look dumb (come on, i'm new to this!) so please help me out!

thank you!

xxx

[Atomic Rain]

try turning down the sample rate ( a sample rate will be like, "44100Hz") to a lower one, and see if the problem goes.

[wontgetfooledagain]

Is there no way you can shift one of the tracks forward or backward a bit? I know you can do it with Audacity and it will work unless you are actually out of time with the recording.

[Atomic Rain]

it's not easy to do perfectly, and it is always better to prevent a problem than to rectify it.

[vizo]

it's called latency, and you've got too much of it. a slow computer with a low processor speed and low ram have a lot to do with it. your soundcard may be to blame as well. a usb or firewire recording device should give you little to no latency, but since youre on a bread and beans diet then that may be out of the question.

[TheJarve]

solution: external recorder :P

yeah vizo is right, get more ram or a faster processor or something. shop around and you might find a cheap recording device though. they come in handy.

[shayne_122]

Actually... I had that mic for about 2 weeks, and exchanged it for a CAD GXL2200 instead. Clarity just isn't that great, I got better results out of my EV N/DYM267 dynamic vocal mic. It's because it has a digital preamp, so any gain changes and the noise is brutal.

BUT ANYWAYS.

Yes, as said above, the problem you're having has to do with latency. Latency is the time between the time you input a signal through your computer and the time it comes out. I know the drivers that come with the mic are ASIO, so I'm guessing it's your computer that's slowing it down.
My suggestions would be to (if you hadn't done it already, haha) close all programs in the background, such as virus scanners, MSN, etc. etc., as well as make sure that the input selected in your program is a mono channel, so either left or right. This will reduce the amount of information your computer has to process by 50%. Also, reducing the bit depth may also be a possibility.

[Striker62]

try turning down the sample rate ( a sample rate will be like, "44100Hz") to a lower one, and see if the problem goes.
actually the higher the sample rate(aka 96k) the less latency there is. I used to think the same thing in common knowledge you would think since better quality it would take more time. but the ways its processed equals lower latency. :thumb:

[Moseph]

try turning down the sample rate ( a sample rate will be like, "44100Hz") to a lower one, and see if the problem goes.

NO! BAD!

What is being experienced is called latency, and you can never get rid of it. It is the result of using digital equipment. High-end gear can get very low, possibly unnoticeable latency, but it still exists.

What you're going to have to do is learn to work around it. There are some tweaks you can make to windows etc, and also try some ASIO drivers, but for the most part, a computer's stock sound card will always suffer from noticeable latency.

When I deal with latency, I usually give myself a few seconds lead in, and just tap out a few measures on the beat to each track that's recorded. Then I do the same on subsequent tracks in-rhythm with the first recording, and then play along with the first track while listening, as if the latency doesn't exist. Then, after the track is done, aligning them is fairly easy, as you have a group of taps at the start of each track to help you line things up. After you're done recording, you can edit out the taps and you have a song.