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Multitrack delay
Aloha all!
I’m trying to do some basic multitrack recording. Lay down one channel, go back, add accompaniment to that channel, go back, add another track for vocals, etc. etc. Really vanilla stuff. But with each pass, I get a delay. It seems to average about .040 seconds.
I checked the Preferences; the evil Enable Smart Monitoring option is off.
This happens even with no external equipment to contend with. Sitting at my desk, using the mic from my iMac, I tap out a constant beat (more or less) on my desk. I then play that back while recording to a second channel, and tap along with the first channel. When I play back the pair, there’s a definite delay between tracks 1 & 2. If I continue the experiment by playing track 2 while recording track 3, then playing track 3 while recording track 4, I can see the waveform peaks shifting more and more to the right.
Surely this isn’t how it’s supposed to work. What am I doing wrong?
Mahalo!
Tom GThe difference between theory and reality is that, in theory, there is no difference between theory and reality.
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3 Replies
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It is essentially a latency issue: time that the audio system in your computer adds between signal input and recording. The solution might be as simple as using a different system. Audio input streams should run with ASIO, which you get with most sound cards. There’s a software “ASIO”called “ASIO4All” which might help if you don’t have anything but the built-in sound card. You want something that minimizes the delay. At around 10 ms it starts to become unnoticeable. There are some videos on “How to fix latency in Audition”, haven’t looked at any, but you should find a more in-depth answer to this in one of those.
Kalleheikki Kannisto
Senior Graphic Designer -
I’ve done a bit of digging, and found a couple of tweaks. I’m on a Mac, so the ASIO driver isn’t applicable.
I just don’t understand how I can buy a $400 multitrack recorder that can do this simple task with no perceptible latency, but my 21st century computer, with more computing power than the entire 20th century combined, can’t accomplish the same thing. Now, my iMac is 3 years old, but it was the best that money could buy three years ago. 32 GB RAM, 3.2 GHz Intel Core I5, current Adobe, OS 10.12
I’ve done a lot of Googling about “multitrack latency Audition,” and most of the results are non-helpful. I keep getting the same three results:
-reduce buffer size
-use ASIO drivers
-use an external interfaceI’ve tried the two that are applicable, and while it does reduce the latency, it doesn’t get it down to the imperceptible range.
It just seems like something that shouldn’t be an issue. Heck, acknowledging that latency exists, the machine should be able to offset that automatically.
The difference between theory and reality is that, in theory, there is no difference between theory and reality.
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Yeah, as far as I know Audition is the only major audio software that doesn’t have automatic nor manual latency compensation settings, so the best you can do is to get as fast a sound card as possible. If you get the input+output latency total to below 10ms it is generally considered “no latency” or imperceptible. I haven’t used a Mac in a decade, so unfortunately I don’t know what would be a good interface for you.
You might have already seen this: https://helpx.adobe.com/audition/kb/troubleshoot-recording-playback-monitoring-audition-1.html
Kalleheikki Kannisto
Senior Graphic Designer
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