Garth-S
Have a look at this nifty little device. It hooks up a mic to your pc via usb and an xlr cable, has phantom power and zero latency. Pretty sweet!
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/MicPortPro
Wessel
Is it possible to build something a bit cheaper if you use this
[img]http://[/img]
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A Mic adapter and a stereo adapter for computer.
And then just a battery powered phantom power adaptor in between?
Or use a mini mixer for phantom power ?
Dont know if this is possible?
Wessel
Sorry the photos is a bit big
AlanRatcliffe
It is pretty cool, but at a retail of $200? I suppose it could come in useful for someone who wants to do field recordings with a mic though. That's zero latency monitoring, BTW - not the same as the latency in getting the sound into the PC.
@ Wessel, It's a mic preamp direct to USB, so it's a lot more than just an adaptor. USB powered too.
Garth-S
Ja Alan, it is a bit pricey. Please could you explain how latency effects recording, and how to overcome the problems it causes. Isn't the latency on monitoring more important? Sorry I'm confuzzled ?
NorioDS
From my little experiments in recording as of late, latency in getting the signal into the PC is important.
Imagine you're recording along with a backing track or something. Maybe a drum track, whatever. If there's latency between when you strike the string and when that sound gets recorded, it'll always sound out of beat.
So even if you have direct monitoring of what you're playing (STUSBG10 offers this), if there's latency to the PC, the recording will sound off. Maybe more noticeable at higher tempos.
Alan, correct me please ?
AlanRatcliffe
It's not usually a problem these days. Decent modern recording software actually "plays ahead" the recorded tracks by the amount of latency you set your soundcard to, so that the latency becomes a non-issue.
If your software doesn't have this compensation, the latency involved is on both input and output. This means that when you are monitoring, what you are hearing is a few milliseconds late and what you are playing is a few milliseconds late getting to the software. With larger latencies the two together can become a problem as every track you record is later than what is already recorded.
Obviously with realtime processors like standalone guitar amp sims like Guitar Rig or Amplitude, the software cannot "play ahead" (as you are the source of the sound, not an already recorded track) and then both input and output latency can be an issue if they are large.
Think of this latency in terms of distance from your monitors - sound travels approximately a foot a millisecond (or a metre every 3 ms), so if your output latency is say 12ms, it is the same delay as if you were standing 12 foot (4M) away from the speakers. Take the input latency into account and that doubles to 24 foot / 8m away which is a noticeable delay.
The good news is that with decent soundcards (especially the internal PCI type), it's pretty easy to get a fairly low latency these days. I think my GR laptop's Edirol UA-25 is set to 1.5ms, which means an effective 3ms latency, or the equivalent of standing 1 foot away from a real amp ?
Riaan
Alan, how many milliseconds becomes noticable? In other words, when monitoring real time using something like Guitar Rig, at what latency will the effect become noticable for most people?
AlanRatcliffe
Interesting question. I think it varies from person to person. I start noticing a "response" issue at about 15 ms, I don't hear it as a specific delay (as I would if using a delay effect), but more as the guitar is not responding properly to what I'm doing. It starts coming across as a delay only at about 24 ms. I don't know if others get the same things from it as me.
NorioDS
From what I've read, 11ms is barely noticeable. I mess around at the 18ms mark without too much hassle but higher than that is definitely noticeable to me.
Renesongs
My experience is a little different. More than 10ms say 12ms affects my timing slightly when recording with headphones - with monitors it is even more noticeable ( distance from the ear). Anything under 10 is very good, over 20ms is not good. These figures are different If you use Creative Labs cards and drivers because I'm sure they lie about the latency, their reported 10ms latency feels disturbing to me.
AlanRatcliffe
Renesongs wrote:
These figures are different If you use Creative Labs cards and drivers because I'm sure they lie about the latency, their reported 10ms latency feels disturbing to me.
Everything about Creative is disturbing to me. ?
Renesongs
Alan Ratcliffe wrote:
Everything about Creative is disturbing to me. ?
I used to use top of the range Creative cards a couple of years ago because I mistakenly believed that professional sound cards were too expensive, until I discovered that ESP sound cards were actually cheaper (in price only) ?
Mr-M
ESP? You mean ESI maybe?
AlanRatcliffe
Mr M wrote:
ESP? You mean ESI maybe?
SHH! Rene seems to have a mental block against ESI.
Renesongs
Forgive my dyslexia - in my defence my Card is an Audiotrak, and no I don't have a block ESI specifically, 20+ years in IT/IS has made me a bit TLA phobic, so SQL OLE ISP VBO DBX SMP JRL POP CRT CSV FXP URN URL XMR ZIF to you all because WYSIWYG ?
AlanRatcliffe
It's sad, but I follow all of that perfectly :-[
NorioDS
Me three. Techies like making music, it seems ?
Gray
Is there a gas leak in here? ?
