Auditon 3.01 input latency

Hello folks!

Perhaps I don't use the right terminology, but my issue concerns the INPUT DELAY when you record a track in audition. Not the playback-latency or “listening”-latency.

Some months ago I purchased a new DAW with Windows 7 64-bit, Intel Core i7 processor, 8 GB RAM, a Corsair Force SSD-hard drive for the programs, a WD Velociraptor hard drive for “working disc”, and a Infrasonic Quartet 24 bit/192 kHz PCI-soundcard.
I disabled the onboard soundcard and installed Audition 3.0 + the 3.01-updatefile on the DAW. So there’s nothing else running on the computer than Audition, the soundcard-driver + of course all the Windows OS-programs and services. But nothing else, like antivirus, firewalls etc., because I don’t have the computer connected to the net.   

Everything seemed to be ok. All my vsti/midi systems worked fine, all microphone/line inputs worked, playback worked…. so I started to record guitar-tracks using direct monitoring, playing with midi drums- and bass-tracks.
The monitoring was ok. No latency or delay on my guitar-monitoring while playing, since I heard it directly from the soundcard.
But when I listened to the recorded guitar-track, it sounded “badly played”. No so much that you can put a finger on it, but enough to sound “odd and strange”.
My first thought was that I’m just getting old and rusty, but anyway I started to do some tests to see if there’s something wrong with the system devices and setups.
The midi-tracks and vsti:s was ok = they play exactly in beat. No delays.
But when I did a “loopback” test on the analog output-input signal, I noticed that there was a delay in the signal.

I’m not much of a technical person, so  it’s very possible that I’m thinking totally wrong, but I did it in this way:

I opened a new (44100kHz/32 bit) session with only one audio-track, tempo 120 bpm, 4/4 time, 4 beats/bar, external monitoring and the soundcards buffer on 64 samples. I enabled the metronome and putted the metronome output to “01S” (the same as the sessions master-output). I putted the audio-track input to “03M” (the input I use from the soundcard) and putted the audio-track-output to “None”.
After that I putted an audiocable from the soundcards output jack to the soundcards input jack. If I’m thinking right, I was now recording an analog metronome-signal into the audio-track in the session, which should be in beat with the internal metronome.
But when I display the view in “bars and beats”, open the recorded metronome-track in edit view, mark the exact place for beat one in a bar, change the view to “decimals (mm.ss.ddd), and zoom in the marked place/section, I noticed that the metronome “hit” is about 6 ms after the mark.
So there’s a delay in the input signal. The input/recorded signal “arrives too late” into the track.

Ok, I was thinking that “6 ms isn’t so much”….perhaps it’s normal in DAW:s?…..”but the delay should be only 1,45 ms with 44, 1 khz and a 64 samples buffer”…”but perhaps I have to live with it”…..

But even so, I decided to do the same test on my old DAW. A Windows XP 32bit with the same Audition 3.01., AMD Athlon 64 3500+ processor,  1,5 G RAM, 7200rpm hard drives and a Lexicon Lambda usb-soundcard.
I was surprised when the delay was nearly zero with a similar “loopback”-test. Even if I used a 512 samples buffer, it was only around 0,5 ms late.

This must be the reason why I never had similar problems with my old DAW.

But what can be causing this on my new DAW? Of course there can be thousands of reasons, everything from conflicting IRQ:s to bad drivers, but I have to start to rule out the reasons one by one.   

 
I have noticed that the Infrasonic Quartet card isn’t so well-known and common, but if  we talk only about other possibly factors that can cause this problem, I could ask these questions:

-I have understood that Audition 3.01 doesn’t have any “automatic latency correction”? Am I right? If it after all has one, can it be that it works in Windows XP 32-bit , but not in Windows 7 64bit?

-Anyone know if the Lexicon Lambda has this “automatic latency correction”?

Of course I’m grateful for any ideas, tips and hints that could help me solve this problem.

( ….and to make this case even more complicated, I cannot try how the Lexicon Lambda acts on the new Windows 7 DAW, because the drivers I downloaded from Lexicon won’t work at all in this new setup. That could have explained much.)

Cheers!

Peter
Helsinki, Finland

 

Hi Peter and welcome.

Someone smarter then me will no doubt come along with a slick answer but before they do a quick question or two -
1. Do you have a 7200rpm drive in your system as well as the Raptor?
If so try recording to that and see if its the same
2. If its better with the 7200rpm then next question - is AHCI enabled in the bios (do not enable now if it isn't)?

BTW 6 ms is pretty well not much

Hi Peter and welcome.

Someone smarter then me will no doubt come along with a slick answer but before they do a quick question or two -
1. Do you have a 7200rpm drive in your system as well as the Raptor?
If so try recording to that and see if its the same
2. If its better with the 7200rpm then next question - is AHCI enabled in the bios (do not enable now if it isn't)?

BTW 6 ms is pretty well not much

Hello Runaway. 
Thanks for the fast aswer! Well...you sound pretty smart. I think you got something there. Sounds a little odd, but is it possible that my drives are TOO FAST? I don't have a 7200 rpm drive on my system, but I connected a Maxtor external USB-hard-drive to the system, and recorded a "loopback" testession on it.  The latency was only 4 ms.  I'm confused....  Can it be something wrong (thinking) with my setup and drives? I have the Audition program on C-drive, which is a Corsair force 115 GB SSD Sandforce harddrive. And all the sessions and audio on D-drive, which is the Velociraptor 450 GB 3,5" SATA 3 10 K 32M.

I could'nt see anything in the bios concerning ACHI and the Velociraptor. Under AHCI there is only the Corsair SSD drive, and the setting is [auto]. Any ideas?   

Well...6 ms seems to be too much for me, when I play with exact midi-plugins. And... if the latency is 6 ms everytime you record the next track (if you listen to the previous), you will end up with 60 ms after the 10:th track.

Peter

Are you using the ASIO drivers with the Infrasonic sound card?

Are you using the ASIO drivers with the Infrasonic sound card?

Sure. The Audio Hardware Setup in Audition says: Audio Driver: ASIO 2.2 - QUARTET.

I had some problems finding the right..or should I say, the best working driver. I downloaded the newest driver from Infra-Sonic (ISQUARTET_V1.24.10), but I had problems with it. The best working driver is the one that came with the card (ISQUARTET_V1.22.03). But I have tried both, and the latency(problem) is similar.

Peter

One thing you can try is to turn off any Windows 7 stuff, like Aero, which would use resources. 
Go to Control Panel>Performance Information and Tools, and in the left column click Adjust Visual Effects.  A window will pop up.  In the Visual Effects tab, choose Adjust for Best Performance.  Then in the Advanced Tab, choose Programs under the Processor Scheduling section. 
This will turn off the Windows Aero visual stuff, freeing up some computer resources.  Not sure if it will help your latency problem but it should be done anyway if you are using this computer as a DAW. 

One thing you can try is to turn off any Windows 7 stuff, like Aero, which would use resources. 
Go to Control Panel>Performance Information and Tools, and in the left column click Adjust Visual Effects.  A window will pop up.  In the Visual Effects tab, choose Adjust for Best Performance.  Then in the Advanced Tab, choose Programs under the Processor Scheduling section. 
This will turn off the Windows Aero visual stuff, freeing up some computer resources.  Not sure if it will help your latency problem but it should be done anyway if you are using this computer as a DAW. 

Hi Eric!

Yes, I have the "best performance" option chosen in Visual effects. About the Advanced tabs options there are different oppinions. Others say that a soundcard is a "Background service", so for best performance is better to choose this option. Anyway, I have tried both options, and it makes no difference.

Since we are discussing these performance-settings, do you have any suggestions about the Virtual memory settings on this same tab?

Peter

 

I don't have a 7200 rpm drive on my system, but I connected a Maxtor external USB-hard-drive to the system, and recorded a "loopback" testession on it.  The latency was only 4 ms.  I'm confused....  Can it be something wrong (thinking) with my setup and drives? I have the Audition program on C-drive, which is a Corsair force 115 GB SSD Sandforce harddrive. And all the sessions and audio on D-drive, which is the Velociraptor 450 GB 3,5" SATA 3 10 K 32M.

I could'nt see anything in the bios concerning ACHI and the Velociraptor. Under AHCI there is only the Corsair SSD drive, and the setting is [auto]. Any ideas?   

There is a known issue with Raptor drives and standard IDE setup rather than AHCI
The result is a performance issue and as your audio is coming off the raptor then I would be looking here to make sure it is set on.
IMPORTANT: You need to make a registry entry before switching it on - google can be your friend in this area

Do a search for raptor & ahci

There may be other issues but at least check this one out

I don't have a 7200 rpm drive on my system, but I connected a Maxtor external USB-hard-drive to the system, and recorded a "loopback" testession on it.  The latency was only 4 ms.  I'm confused....  Can it be something wrong (thinking) with my setup and drives? I have the Audition program on C-drive, which is a Corsair force 115 GB SSD Sandforce harddrive. And all the sessions and audio on D-drive, which is the Velociraptor 450 GB 3,5" SATA 3 10 K 32M.

I could'nt see anything in the bios concerning ACHI and the Velociraptor. Under AHCI there is only the Corsair SSD drive, and the setting is [auto]. Any ideas?   

There is a known issue with Raptor drives and standard IDE setup rather than AHCI
The result is a performance issue and as your audio is coming off the raptor then I would be looking here to make sure it is set on.
IMPORTANT: You need to make a registry entry before switching it on - google can be your friend in this area

Do a search for raptor & ahci

There may be other issues but at least check this one out

Ok, now I know that my system DO work in ACHI mode.

I have googled thru at least 100 of pages with comments about ACHI vs. IDE. I couldn't find any comments concerning exactly ACHI/ Velociraptor in audio/DAW environments, but 99% of the comments and questions was about "how to change the IDE to ACHI?" So the general opinion seems to be that "ACHI is better than IDE".
But of course I got your point. It's very possible that IDE could work better in exactly this setup; windows 7 x64/ Velociraptor/ Audition, but changing (in my case) the ACHI to IDE seems to be quite troublesome. And after all..it's a longshoot.

I'm more and more convinced of that the problem is in the Infrasonic driver. Perhaps Infrasonic assume that the soundcard is going to be operated with a recording program which is equipped with a "record offset compensation" function (like Cubase), and therefore they don't consider a 6 ms input delay as a problem.
I don't know, but I'm waiting for an answer from Infrasonic.

But now when I have got deep into this record-offset issue, I'm a little surprised that Audition 3 doesn't have this "record offset compensation" feature. Why?? I imagine that others than me have similar problems using AA3.?
And I'm even more astounded, when I  noticed that AA 1.5 has this feature. It's called "Multitrack latency" under "Device properties - Wave In"

Heres a very old, but in my opinion still accurate article about "record offset"; http://www.opuslocus.com/logic/record_offset.php  (You could swap Logic to AA3 in this story)

Ok, now I know that my system DO work in ACHI mode.

That's good and IMO the way it should be so we can discount that and you are probably correct regarding the Infrasonic driver

[should]

But now when I have got deep into this record-offset issue, I'm a little surprised that Audition 3 doesn't have this "record offset compensation" feature. Why?? I imagine that others than me have similar problems using AA3.?
And I'm even more astounded, when I  noticed that AA 1.5 has this feature. It's called "Multitrack latency" under "Device properties - Wave In"

AA 1.5 uses Windows MME or WDM drivers which go via the operating system. AA 3 uses ASIO which bypasses the OS completely and is therefore much faster and should provide much lower latency than Windows Audio drivers. Hence no "Record latency offset" in AA 3 onwards.

[should]

AA 1.5 uses Windows MME or WDM drivers which go via the operating system. AA 3 uses ASIO which bypasses the OS completely and is therefore much faster and should provide much lower latency than Windows Audio drivers. Hence no "Record latency offset" in AA 3 onwards.

Ok, that sounds logical. My conclusion is then that Adobe sees that there's no need for latency compensation anymore, since Asio-drivers are good enough.

So, before I start to argue with Infra-sonic about their drivers, it would be nice to hear some comments from you all.

What is the expected and acceptable input latency in AA3 recording with ASIO-drivers in 44,1 kHz and 64 samples soundcard-buffer? Have anyone of you checked what the input latency is in your setups? Have anyone experienced similar problems with the input latency?

Thanks!

P.

I have been following this with interest, but have now totally confused myself.

I don't normally worry about latency, as it doesn't matter for most of what I do, but I do play guitar and have recently been recording a bit. I use direct monitoring and very occasionally use a drum machine, never the metronome.

So I've just set up my ancient Edirol UA-3FX usb 1.1 interface on the Win7 64-bit laptop, set to 192 samples buffer, 44.1kHz. I plugged the output of the Edirol to its input, switched off its direct monitoring, set the metronome going and recorded on Track 1.
Then I set track 1 to play, and set Track 2 to record with its output muted. Then played the 2 tracks together and separately mixed them down. The resultant playbacks had, as far as I could see and hear, no detectable latency.

Thinking this couldn't be right, I then went through the chain plugging and unplugging, fading outputs and inputs up and down, all of which seemed to confirm that I was doing what I thought.

The only thing I have doubts about are the Edirol control panel settings, which are a bit vague to say the least. In addition to the 192 samples setting, there is a tick box for "allow smaller buffer".

I need to look into this when I have more time, as it can't be right.

However, as I say, I have been recording my guitar via the Edirol and other usb direct monitoring interface and haven't noticed any latency problems.

I'll report back when I've worked out what I'm doing wrong!

Wildduck!

Do you mean that you first had two recorded tracks (with metronom), track 1 & 2 ? After that you did this:

" Then played the 2 tracks together and separately mixed them down. The resultant playbacks had, as far as I could see and hear, no detectable latency".

I can't really follow that step. Why did you do a mixdown?
After you have recorded track 1 and track 2, you should only compare them visually. In the View - display time format -  choose "Bars and beats".
In multrack, put the cursor exactly on beat 1 in a bar, and zoom in the point until you can clearly see the metronomes audiowave (hit on beat 1) on both tracks. If they're not in line (the metronomehit on track 2 is to the right from the metronomehit on track 1) you have a "input latency". After that, check that the cursor is still exactly on beat 1, click on the cursor point to make track 2 active, open the track in edit view, zoom in the point, check at the cursor is still exactly on beat 1, click with the right mouse and choose "Add to marker list".
Now you have a marked point for beat 1 in a bar. Then change the View - display time format - to Decimals (mm.ss.ddd). Zoom in the marked point until you see milliseconds on the timeline (for example 10.004 = 10 seconds 4 milliseconds).
Then check where the wave of the metronome-hit starts compared to the marked point. The difference/gap in milliseconds is the input latency.

(It's easyest to record the metronome with a 120bpm tempo in 4/4 time. Then you have, for example,  beat 1 of bar 6 exactly on 10s 000ms. And you can easily check how much late from 10.000 the metronome-hit is located.)

Please don't confuse yourself to much with this, if this never have bothered you or caused problems before. This input latency problem is more a "psycho" issue for me. If I know that the machine records exactly what I play, I can only blame myself for playing badly. But if a technical failure causes my playing to sound bad, I cannot really deal with it.

P.

 

Everything is set to default to the stereo asio driver of the Edirol. The output is plugged to the input.

I start the metronome and record it onto stereo track 1.

I then set track 1 to solo, and set track 2 to record. It then records the playback from track 1. So the recorded metronome is playing on track 1 through the Edirol. The output of the Edirol is plugged to the input, so the audio passes through a complete play to analogue record process and records on track 2.

I then repeated the process with the asio buffer set to max (864?) samples and record to track 3. I can now see a small delay on the recording, but not as much as I would expect.

Next, I repeated the process to track 4, but with the Edirol set to use wdm drivers, 2048 samples buffer, and with Audition set to Windows Sound. Now I can see, and hear the latency.

I originally performed a mixdown just to see if I could see or hear any latency in the combined original and re-recorded Metronome. I couldn't.

What surprises me is that I can't detect enough latency when using asio.

I believe I have everything set as you suggest. In my case, any problem is definitely the playing.

I'll try to attach a screenshot of all this.