Fl studio recording delay software#

The second type of latency is a mismatch between the timing of an audio recording and how it actually 'lands' on the multitrack in your digital audio workstation.

Fl studio recording delay software#

So not only do you have varying lengths of cables (which aren't huge contributors to the problem), you have the time of the DAC calculations creating the lag.Īdd in something like a MIDI keyboard player using a software plugin synthesizer who's notes have to travel through the converter twice, be calculated by the plugin, share the audio buffer and the overtaxed CPU and you can see how quickly your playback experience can be thrown into disarray. The reason for the delay is that her voice is being piped right from the mic and out through the headphone amp on the audio interface entirely on a hardware level, but the instrumental is traveling from the DAW software through the digital-to-analog converter in the interface and then out through the headphones. One is a mismatch in the timing of hardware monitored audio versus its accompanied software produced audio.įor instance, when a vocalist is wearing headphones so she can hear her own voice as she sings along to the instrumental of her song, she may notice an annoying delay where the instrumental drags behind her live performance. You're going to deal with two types of latency that create issues while recording and also while mixing after the fact. Let's talk about these various points where a tiny bit of delay is added over and over until you have a noticeable problem. The type of latency you'll deal with as a recording engineer will involve the accumulated delays that result in playback monitoring slightly lagging behind the other tracks that already exist.Įven though this may only be a fraction of a fraction of a second, it can ruin a performance by confusing players or at least make them sound horrible to the audience. These forms of latency aren't an issue because all sound sources are afflicted by the same amount of delay. This happens due to the difference between the speed of light traveling faster to your eye versus the speed of sound playing catch up to your ears. If you're far enough from the stage, you'll see the guitarist pick a note but you won't hear it till a moment later. That is one form of latency that you encounter in live performances in large venues. That sounds confusing and it is because it's a general definition to catch all of the various types of latency.Ĭonsider standing at the Grand Canyon and yelling 'Hello?' and waiting a few moments before hearing your own voice bounce back to you.

In summary, audio latency is a time delay, usually in tens of milliseconds, between the creation of a sound and its playback or recording. Let's figure out exactly what's going on, define the problem, and present the variables you can tweak to reduce latency as much as possible. How can his be? You've just had your first run in with latency in audio recording, something you didn't deal with during your gigs and practice sessions. But you keep listening and realize you're out of sync by the exact same amount of time across the entire section of the song. 'Holy crap,' you think as you discover you're way out of time and resigning yourself to a second take. And now it's time to lay down your first rhythm guitar tracks. You sit down and meticulously create your backing tracks with high quality samples and MIDI sound fonts. Luckily for you, you're an actual music theorist and have an album's worth of songs in the bag already. But rather than write original music, most choose to disband and get day jobs. You realize you don't want to pretend to be a member of Talking Heads for the rest of your life, so you bring it up to your crew and they all confess the same. Let's say you're an accomplished guitarist who has been playing live for nearly a decade, ripping improvised solos alongside your band mates in your city's most celebrated cover band.