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HELP: Weird time lag problem with Live 6
I recorded a bass track over top of Illinios 13's Swamp Zombie Luck track:
http://mix2r.fm/node/544
Although I played the notes perfectly in time with the tune, the recording seems to show a slight delay on most of the bass notes. I tried re-recording and pushing my notes a bit and it helped but the track still got recorded outside the parameters I played. I have noticed the same behavious on other projects. It doesn't seem to affect playing lead guitar or vocals,, but when I play rhythm guitar or basss, sometimes there is a lag.
Does anyone here know if this is a proble with the automatic arping or other quantizing? Anyone else have similar problems?
Setup:
PPC based Mac G5
Line 6 Toneport UX2, running gearbox
Ableton Live 6
Have you tried using direct monitoring, reducing latency as low it will go or clip nudging (page 98 Live manual)?
Good luck getting the bass in sync !
p.s. - bass does have a tendency to have a slightly higher latency than electric 6 string guitars, the lower the notes the more the latency (this crippled early MIDI guitars, the bass E string was notoriously lagging for years on MIDI electric guitars)
Like UR said, you need to set your buffer to a lower number. Lower numbers for tracking and higher numbers for mixing. But that being said you can just move the track manually (nudge). Start with 10 ms increments, get it close than move in 1 ms increments. You might have to create a few regions from the track and move them independently. There is still likely latency going on with your other tracks as well, it's just more apparent when the rhythm section isn't tight. Unfortunately latency is a big downside to computer recording. That's why in a perfect world you want to record the band at the same time if you want an accurate "vibe".
I think I found Duane's problem (was there this afternoon). Basically, it seems like his first warp marker on the drum track in Live6 didn't match the first beat of the track. Playing around with that got things in synch...seemed like an easy fix, drag around for a few seconds till it sounds right :-)
Ableton wrote back to me and gave me some other useful tips too. THanks to everyone who helped out here. I think I can mitigate it now.
Hello Duane,
the cause of the delay is the latency of your soundcard. The soundcard needs a certain time to calculate the incoming/outgoing audio stream which results in latency. You can reduce the latency by decreasing the buffer size, but you will come to the point when your audio signals begin to crackle (due to a too small buffer size).
With a 'good' soundcard you will be able to reduce the latency to a few milliseconds, which is almost unnoticeable.
Another important fact when recording audio clips in Live is the so called 'driver error compensation'. If the driver error compensation is correctly set up, Live will automatically shift a recorded track a few milliseconds forward (in regards to the input latency), so that your recorded track will be perfectly in time.
I'd suggest to take Live's built-in lessons to learn more about latency and the driver error compensation. Please go to the 'help' menu and choose 'lessons table of contents'. I'd recommend to read through
1. Setting up Audio I/O
2. Driver error compensation
Note: if the built-in lessons are missing, please make sure you have the Lessons Live Pack installed. This can be downloaded from here:
http://www.ableton.com/livepacks
To install a Live Pack:
-unzip the downloaded file
-open Live 6
-choose 'Install Live Packs' from the 'File' Menu
-point to the downloaded/unzipped '.alp' file and click 'ok'
-proceed with any other Live Pack as described above
Let me know if this helps or if you need further assistance with that.
> Would it lessen the
> processing power to bounce 10+ tracks down to one tracks then only play
> back one track to record the new track?
Yes, but your Intel Mac should be able to play back 10 audio tracks at a time. Just watch you CPU meter and the disk usage indicator (the 'D' at the right of the CPU meter). If you reach the limits of the CPU meter, try to freeze tracks which make extensive use of plugin effects. If the 'D' flashes, reduce the amount of simultaneously played audio tracks by bouncing them into one track. Also check your sample rate and bit depth settings. A sample rate of 96khz makes the files twice as large as in 48khz. Having that said, your harddrive needs to handle twice the data throughput as in 48khz. Same goes for the bit depth. 24bit files need 1.5 times the size as 16bit files. CD standard is 44.1khz, 16bit, so if you don't need to work on ultra-high quality projects like DVD stuff etc. and rather need as much performance as you can get, work in 44.1khz, 16bit.
Another thing to avoid would be the use of Live's 'Complex' warp mode. The complex mode takes 10 times the CPU power of the standard modes (i.e. Beat). If you need to adjust any audio files in complex mode, make your settings, then resample the clip and set the new clip to 'beats' or 'repitch'.
Hope this helps.
Best regards,
>Wouldn't mixing latency be linear?
I suspect that both recording and mixing latency is linear within a certain buffer setting. Remember though that most plug-ins also have their own latency. Some DAWs (eg Pro Tools HD, Sequoia) have built in latency compensation for plug-ins.
>Or does the time shift happen in pockets when laying down a track using Ableton?
I also suspect that on a Windows box background processes etc. might occasionally create a "pocket". This might also happpen if you have low CPU overhead or if your RAM is quite full.
> Would it lessen the processing power to bounce 10+ tracks down to one tracks then only play back one track to record the new track?
This is similar to what I do. I create an "Overdub" session (with a stereo mix) for each instrument to be overdubbed. I make sure no plug-ins are used in these sessions. Then afterwards I import the "overdubbed" track via the "Import Session Data in Pro Tools"
Cubase and Ableton Live both offer plug-in delay compensation and Cubase the option can be switched on or off by the click of one icon.
'Stem' mixing is getting popular, i.e the bouncing of all the vocal tracks to one stereo track, all drums to one stereo track, guitars to one stereo track. It also offers the advantage that mastering houses can put up all the stems in an audio montage and have more flexibility to process these seperately or even fix or edit more flaws and flubs in audio editing or mixing to a degree.
Joined: 2006-06-29