How do I reduce/eliminate latency with input echo? My sound card is excellent, with no latency otherwise....

What are you trying to record when you notice the latency? Some sort of soft synth or something? Sometimes "excellent" soundcards have nothing to do with it. It could be your computer or some setting. There are lots of variables as to how this can happen. Your best bet is to provide as much information as you can so we can sort out what may be going on here. :)

-Danny

Lower your buffer setting

I am recording vocals with a good condenser mic. When I turn off input echo, there is no latency. The latency is only in the echo, not in the recording, BTW.

  Um... I'll try that. How, again? (bit of a nooby here...)

Are you using ASIO, WDM??? What are your buffers set to? Like I said, you gotta give us information man. Always include your system stats and soundcard configuration when asking questions on here. It helps us determine what to tell you to do. Ethereal is probably right....you need to adjust your ASIO buffer settings during recording. Most people can get away with 128, but if you can go down to 64, try that. When you're done recording, you can raise the buffers to like 1028 or something higher to mix and process.

-Danny

 Using ASIO, buffer set to fastest (5.8 msec). As I said, latency only an issue in what I hear with input echo, not in actual recording.

Are you using any effects in your effects bin or any VSTi's at all? You're still not giving me enough information bro. LOL! How many tracks are you working with....what effects, what VSTi's? The reason I'm asking you all this stuff is, sometimes certain VST plugins when used on the track you are recording on (like say you want a little reverb as you record) will introduce latency into your recording.

If you are using certain VSTi's like say Kontakt with a load of it's effects working behind the scenes, this too can introduce latency into your recording when you use input echo. If this is the case, press the PDC button on your main bar at the top if you have it visible. If not, you'll need to make it visible on your main control bar. It literally says "PDC" you can't miss it. :) Disable it after you're done recording.

You should NOT be getting ANY latency at all if you are just recording a vocal track without any VST plugins or there are no VSTi's running on any other tracks. Strictly audio with input echo should be nothing you can notice at 5.8ms. If you ARE getting it and no effects are loaded up, this is something else going on. You may need to use a latency checker to see what your system is reporting.

-Danny

 Danny - I thought of what you said - that it might be returning a reverb e.g., so I've tried it with just a track or two in a new project and no FX loaded. It's inconsistent, too, sometimes fine, sometimes up to .5 sec latency - but only what I hear on the input echo. Weird. I'll try what you said - thanks much.

Hmm, that's really weird Glenn. Definitely something else going on I'd say. You should never hear this latency thing with input echo on while just recording audio with nothing else happening.

Let me ask you this...when you bring up task manager (ctrl/alt/del) how many running processes do you see? Anything in the 50's or 60's and it very well could slow Sonar down and give you some latency on that input echo. You should always try to kill as many running processes as possible when using Sonar.

Meaning, yahoo messenger, AIM, quick time, browsers, and anything else running that shouldn't really be running. On my dedicated recording pc's, there are 37 things running that I need to be running. I never allow anything to load up automatically on my pc that shouldn't. You know...like MSM messenger or something has an auto-load when Windows starts....or Quicktime has that auto-load...all that stuff, I kill. On the machine I'm talking to you on now which is my net box, there are 53 things running right now. If I run Sonar on THIS box, I will have a few limitations running that many things as it also depends how much CPU and ram they are using, understand?

This is why the majority of guys on this forum have at least one pc that isn't on the net. The less stuff you have running, the better off you'll be with any DAW you use really. But I've noticed that Sonar is a bit pickier than other DAWs I've tried. So I always make sure I have as little running as possible when using it and I normally don't have any issues. Especially on my recording boxes that never go on the net. They run so good, it's easy to see why some people that only have one pc for everything may have a few more issues than those that use one specifically for recording.

I wish I could help you more on this, but if it's some sort of internal latency issue, one of the big dogs on here will have to sort you out there. I've never had anything like that happen on my end so I have no idea how you would handle something like that. But most times, killing some running processes that you don't need running can make a huge difference. Good luck....hopefully someone else more qualified than me chimes in here.

-Danny