Help, Please: Incoming signal to record is delayed.

Everything is going great: recording the new tracks for my band. I opened up a new track for guitar, hit the Record button and find that the guitar sound is delayed from the time I struck the note. 

Why do things like this crop up out of nowhere?

And your audio interface latency is set low between 32-128 (if you're using input monitoring)? Any effects on the track?

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. Wrapping up from a long day and will try your various suggestions tomorrow evening.

Beepster, I do know about latency issues in general, but I have recorded many, many tracks with my Presonus with never an issue. Why would a problem crop up in this one instance?

As an aside, and I guess I will be blackballed for this, but I've been a Cakewalk user since Pro Audio 6. I have spent way too much money on continual upgrades, but when X2 became available, I paused. I stopped to think about how much time I had spent over the years trying to work with the software instead of recording my music. I have made a decsion to go Mac and use Logic Pro. I don't believe that I am jumping from the pan into the fire, but time will tell.

Notwithstanding my descision to jump ship, I find virtually everyone here to be helpful and truly generous in giving
 their time to help fellow recording enthsiasts. For that, thank you very much.

Dan

dank


Thanks for the suggestions, guys. Wrapping up from a long day and will try your various suggestions tomorrow evening.

Beepster, I do know about latency issues in general, but I have recorded many, many tracks with my Presonus with never an issue. Why would a problem crop up in this one instance?

I'm thinking you probably just have too much on your mind and need to step back. You've been using CW software for a long time, so we should probably assume that by now you know how to set the buffer size for your audio interface in preferences. If it's not that, then there's probably a pretty good chance you've inserted a plugin in that track that uses a look-ahead buffer (see brundlefly's response). Look at your "Where Did My Track Inputs Go" thread. jb101 gave you the answer to your problem, and then almost a day later you said you figured it out on your own, as if he never gave you the solution. :-) Busy holidays, busy brain. 

I have made a decsion to go Mac and use Logic Pro. I don't believe that I am jumping from the pan into the fire, but time will tell.

Latency works the same when dealing with Mac/Logic.   


If you insert a latent plugin in a project... the rest of the audio will be delayed to maintain sync.
Having a Mac/OSX/Logic won't change this.

If the issue is high round-trip latency, the answer is exactly the same.
You need to work at small ASIO buffer sizes (to minimize round-trip latency) when overdubbing.
The older Presonus units have high round-trip latency when monitoring thru software-based EFX/processing.  This is due to a large hidden safety-buffer in the driver.
Using a Mac/OSX/Logic won't change this.  
A workaround is to double the sample-rate (roughly cuts round-trip latency in half)... but the solution is to get an audio interface that provides low round-trip latency.

dank


I have gone to Edit > Preferences >Audio>Driver Settings and scrolled to Mixing Latency. The buffer adjustments are grayed out.

If I understood your original post, the issue was with latency during recording.


To adjust your ASIO settings, you would set the sample rate and buffer size in the Presonus driver interface, try 44.1 and a buffer size of 64 or 128.


Then, go in to Sonar Preferences>Audio>Driver Settings, and make sure the sample rate matches what you set it to in the driver interface.


I have a Presonus interface, the Audiobox 1818 VSL, and I have no issues using 44.1 and a buffer size of 64.


Hope that helps - the other comments about plugins that have 'look ahead' processing, such as Perfect Space, etc, are also valid.  You can test this by temporarily removing effects from your guitar track, and just play the raw signal while recording.  If you hear no delay, then the issue would seem to be with one or more of the effects you have plugged in.


Bob Bone

I have gone to Edit > Preferences >Audio>Driver Settings and scrolled to Mixing Latency. The buffer adjustments are grayed out.

 
Bring up the Presonus' control pannel applet... and change the ASIO buffer size to 64-samples.

with 44.1 and a buffer of 64, my total round trip latency is 4.1 milliseconds, which is fine.

 
At those settings, that's better than fine... 
It's excellent!
 
Most of the better units yield about 5ms total round-trip latency at those same settings (64-sample ASIO buffer size/44.1k)

Oops. I just found it! I will try what you guys recommended.

Hmmm....adjusted to 64 and got the Blue Screen of Death. This is not my night.

J Hughes, I experience the latency as I arm the track to record. It is not yet recorded.

Dank - Thanks.  I was hoping I had a solution for you.  But I have faith it'll get sorted.

hat I was saying is that you can separate audio interface caused latency from plugin caused latency by temporarily removing your plugins from the guitar track, and then seeing if you have a delay from just the raw guitar signal going to the track.

Just to clarify, a latent plugin could be enabled *anywhere* in the project... and cause all other audio (including the guitar track the OP is trying to record) to be delayed.
IOW, He can't limit his search to just those plugins on the delayed guitar track.

There's a PDC (plugin delay compensation) global bypass in the transport section of the control bar.
If you globally disable automatic PDC and the delay disappears, then you know for certain that a latent plugin is the culprit.  You can either remove it from the project (when tracking)... or you can use the global PDC bypass while tracking.  (Obviously you'd want to re-enable PDC for mixing.)