Dealing with Latency in the Digital Studio

[Andy Vermiglio]

I recently did a session in a very nice digital studio. However, it was a struggle to deal with the latency issues. I could bury the click in the drum room and on the playback the drum tracks were behind. I had the engineer record me playing rim clicks locked on to the click. In the drum booth the rim clicks and the click track were dead-on. In the playback there must have been about a 10+ millisecond delay. There was also a lag in hearing the drums through the monitor phones.

Have you guys and gals encountered this? How do you deal with it?

Some info on latency.
http://tweakheadz.com/latency.html

Thanks,
Andy

[DSOP]

If it was a nice digital studio, they should have had that stuff already sorted out. I've never had that happen in a studio during tracking, but I've experienced worse once I've heard the finished product of something I played on (as far as other musicians not playing perfectly in sync with me or having drum sounds replaced by samples that weren't perfectly in sync).

In my engineering days, it was all tape, so I can't offer any guidance here. I do know that using plug-ins can introduce these problems, especially when the computer processors aren't powerful enough or there aren't enough of them.

Hopefully Randy will chime in with some ideas.

From Simon Phillips' website:

Question:
Hi, Simon
First I'd like to thank you for answering my last question.
Now I have a few questions about Pro Tools plug-ins 'cause I've been learning how to record my drums with Pro Tools lately. What plug-ins do you use for kick, snare, toms and overhead tracks?

Simon:
Well first of all I record without using any plug-ins. You have to be careful when using them as they do introduce delay to the track, albiet small, but some plug-ins use a lot of processing power and can therefore add 300-400 samples of delay. The big issue with recording drums in the DAW environment is phase coherency. Generally I prefer to use outboard EQ or compression and then go into the I/O and into Pro Tools. Obviously I use a load when mixing but I can then keep a real check on things to make sure there is no phase problems.

[Robert Schwieger]

Do you know what software was being used for the recording? I've run into similar problems with both Pro Tools and Logic. Look for a "Low Latency Monitoring or Low Latency Mode" depending on what your working with. It might help. Also like the article posted with Simon's advice, my computer isn't fast enough to handle a lot of effects without having some lag or freezing during recording.

[Andy Vermiglio]

Thanks for the feedback DSOP and Robert. The studio was using Pro Tools. There were also a ton of tracks, which may have added to the processing problem. I spoke to the engineer before the session and he assured me that there was zero latency in his system. Of course once we got into it, it was obvious that there was a problem. When I told him about the delay he said, "I know, I know..."

Frustrating session.

[Julián Fernández]

How they manage to run an studio with such kind of trouble unfixed? Weird stuff...
What did you end up doing, Andy?

[cjbdrm]

Sounds like amateur hour. RTFM!!!!!

Latency should not be an issue in any professional recording studio. I agree that stuff should be worked out prior to recording. But this doesn't sound like a 'pro' situation- with all due respect. Having nice equipment doesn't necessarily mean one knows how to use it!

There are several causes of latency in a recording situation, including DAW settings, coverter settings, clocking, buffering, monitoring, and...inexperience!

As a drummer, this shouldn't be your problem. You shouldn't have to adapt to it or change your playing in any way.

As an engineer, quite frankly, it's one's duty to understand how your "tools" work, including hardware and software. Not saying this stuff is easy to figure out- but you shouldn't be a guinea pig for him while he gets his skills together...

It sounds like you were monitoring through software which introduces more latency along with whatever latency is created by the AD/DA conversion and buffering process. For overdubs, you should be monitoring the tracks, including the click, through a mixer or console, then nudging the recorded tracks as necessary to compensate for the latency afterwards. Recording 'live', everyone should be monitoring through a mixer/console so no delay is heard while tracking...if there's latency, no one is the wiser...

Best advice I can give to this guy is RTFM. A lot of us with our own studios have been through this and it's a royal PIA, but it's gotta be learned. Sorry you had to deal with this!

[chris perra]

There's only 2 ways to deal with latency,
1: Have a pro level soundcard that is stable at the lowest buffer setting,.. this setting has to be under 5ms..
To achieve that realistically you need to have all plug ins off... I have an RME, and if there are too many plug ins going it's a gamble for stability,...at 1.5 ms..

2: Run in direct monitoring mode,. it's a function that needs to be present in the souncard and daw..
When direct monitoring is on, you are hearing the input signal to each channel without it going through computer,... This requires an extra mixer using a channel for each input..

Pro studios run stuff this way, with outboard gear for effects..If I'm in a situation that I'm hearing the Daw playback but have latency in my performance playback I just turn off my tracks in my cans,... This will solve your chorus/ slapback delay issue..

To me your problem of your tracks being out of time sound like a hard drive issue. even if there is latency in your cans between the songs playback and your performance your performance should be in time with the track when you play it back... I do it all the time when I have a mix with tons of plug ins running, and I add a drum track later and don't want to deal with volume changes when shut off the plug ins... I just turn my input signal off in my phones,..

The fact that the playback of your performance is off as well, means that the info isn't writing quick enough..

I'd do a computer or harddrive swap. or do a performance tweek of his system... Might be a hardrive, or a driver issue with the soundcard...

Most likely a hardrive/buss speed issue,.. sometimes IRQ's can be shared by too many things, you get a bottleneck and the info gets delayed..
If the studio doesn't do alot of drums,, this kind of thing can be ignored or put off as is only comes up when you are recording lots of tracks...

Good luck

[Andy Vermiglio]

Julian, once I realized what was going on, I ended up playing way ahead of the beat (click). The playback was actually better that way. But that's a really weird "fix."

Chris (dug the diddle post by the way) I'm learning that there is a lot of ways to encounter this latency issue. The direct monitoring mode sounds like the way to go.

cjbdrm wrote "It sounds like you were monitoring through software which introduces more latency along with whatever latency is created by the AD/DA conversion and buffering process. For overdubs, you should be monitoring the tracks, including the click, through a mixer or console, then nudging the recorded tracks as necessary to compensate for the latency afterwards. Recording 'live', everyone should be monitoring through a mixer/console so no delay is heard while tracking...if there's latency, no one is the wiser..." This is what I was thinking of after the fact. I think this would work!

Actually, this isn't the first time this has happened. I recorded a while back at another studio with latency issues. The engineer's work-around was to give me some isolation earphones where I was mostly hearing my drums delayed through the phones and very little was heard acoustically. Again, this is a really weird way to get around the problem.

Thanks again for your responses!

[cjbdrm]

To me your problem of your tracks being out of time sound like a hard drive issue.

....I'd do a computer or harddrive swap. or do a performance tweek of his system...Might be a hardrive, or a driver issue with the soundcard...

Most likely a hardrive/buss speed issue...

Replace the hard drive and/or computer? Talk about throwing the baby out with the bath water...

With all due respect, Chris, I disagree. IMO the guy just doesn't know how to use his tools. A faster hard drive or more powerful CPU or more RAM will certainly improve latency, but is not a substitute for inexperience.

[chris perra]

I only say that because if the playback is late after it was recorded it means it was recorded late... which doesn't have anything to do with latency..
you can have your buffer setting cranked.. and as long as you are just hearing the playback of the track without your performance as you are tracking,.. you'll be in time...

The only thing I can think of that would do that without there being a data bottleneck is if they put plug ins on the inserts of the input channels,.. so they were writing to the computer with compression/eq ect inline... That would delay the input stage before it get written to the drive.....