I'm experiencing latency from speaking to recording - can someone help?

Report · Mar 31, 2020

Hi all,

I've been using audition at work for a year on expensive and new PC built specifically for this purpose. I was using a Tascam US-4x4 interface, which was a little buggy but generally worked OK. Recently, the Tascam drivers updated, and I started having problems. I couldn't record using the interface, at the interference was so bad that the recorded audio was just glitching, cut up recordings of my voice.

So, I used my USB Blue Yeti for a week while I waited for a new audio interface to arrive. I now have a solo Focusrite, which does work - but only on 200ms latency. If I reduce the latency in audition, the glitched recording comes back. And with 200ms latency, the waveform appears what feels like ages after I've spoken.

I'm assuming it's a driver problem (although the focusrite uses different software) but I have no idea what else to try! Can anyone suggest anything?

Thank you.

Joe

Report · Mar 31, 2020

No, it's not a driver problem. You absolutely cannot expect zero latency if you monitor via Audition - it's simple physically not possible, simply because the computer has to process everything in clock cycles, and they take a finite amount of time to happen. The signal has to be A-D converted, processed, and D-A conveted again for you to hear it. And even on the fastest PC in the world, that's still going to happen to a degree, and you'll notice it.

What you were probably doing previously was using a direct monitor path through your interface, and when you updated the driver, it would have reset it internally so that monitoring path wasn't there. All you need to do is to set it up again, and you'll be good to go. The direct monitor path is in there just for this purpose - no A-D or D-A required, just a straight connection to your headphone output, and this is the normal way people use them. That's what the 'direct monitor' button in the top right hand corner's for!

Report · Mar 31, 2020

Hi Steve,

Thanks for your help! The new audio interface I bought does actually have a direct monitor button on it, so I've tried that and it works fine. Although I never actually monitor the sound whilst recording, and that setting in Audition has always been off. My problem was that the audio recording was glitching at anything lower than 200ms latency, all of a sudden. It worked fine without noticable latency for a year, and then suddenly didn't work after an update to the audio interface software.

I've found that if I manually reduce the latency to 50ms on Audition it works, with a bit of a lag still - but any lower and the audio glitches, even on playback. Audition will continue to play sounds to me even passed the waveform.

It is working now, just in a very unusual way! Thanks for your help.

Best,

Joe