best way to deal with recording latency

[skylab001]

I'm just curious what are some options for dealing with recording latency. Of Course there is Low latency monitoring, but what other ways are there to dealing with latency when recording. For example, I just brought over a session an HD system and it had 26 tracks already with plug ins and all. We just wanted to do a few guitar and vocal overdubs. The buffer on our LE system had to be set at 1024 to handle all the plugs and tracks or else the computer would bug out and not playback. But with a 1024 buffer we had quite a delay in the headphones.....so I'm wondering how other 002 LE users deal with this?

[countach74]

use only plugs that are absolutely necessary to the tracking process and lower your H/W Buffer to 128 or lower if you're doing percussive stuff... vocals can get away with 256 or more sometimes. depends on the artist. that's my 2 cents.

[globaleric]

Temporarily deactivate as many tracks and plugins as possible (especially CPU intensive plugs like reverbs) while tracking those overdubs, so you can lower the buffer to a value around 128. You might also try to substitute plugins with some hardware effect box, if really necessary.

[bassntreble]

fer' pete's sake....just bounce the whole damn thing down as a stereo mix except for any tracks you might want to punch into. at this point you have no plugins to content with and the mix sounds like it was intended out of the HD studio. drop the whole mess into low latency mode, record your overdubs. send the file back to the HD studio and have them import the new tracks into their session.....

done and done....

[HotRats_Reloded]

use an hardware mixer.

[Banister]

I've had some success using a Focusrite Twin Trac Pro pre amp... It has a "fold back" monitoring section built in.

It basically just allows me to offer no latency headphone monotoring for that channel. Not so hot for tracking drums, because it's only 2 channels, but using it for guitar or vocal overdubs it works great.

[skylab001]

well first off we were not planning on returning to the Studio with the HD system(bands budget is way beyond what it can afford) so we've got to work with the LE system. I'm curious about using a hardware mixer. How exactly does this overcome the latency issue?

[Slim Shady]

If you have an external preamp (or a Digi interface that has Insert Jacks on it) and hardware mixer, you just mult the output of the mic pre to the mixer (I do this using a compressor insert, one output sends back to the return on my Mbox, the other output goes to my mixer) - you then monitor via the mixer, which has your Microphone signal (pre-digi hardware) on one channel, and your PT output(s) on the other channels. You just mute the track you're recording to in PT as all monitoring is done outside the box.

[athe]

oh my god ... i've been tring to work out how to monitor directly thro my 002 rack and have just joined this forum to ask the question ...and i find this thread .... ARE YOU TELLING ME I CAN'T DIRECTLY MONITOR WITH A 002 RACK .... I THOUGHT IT WAS SUPOSSED TO BE A BIT OF PRO KIT ...

sorry .... i just can't belive it ... what is the point ....why is it that digi always do things a little differently .... virtually every other bit of hardware at this price allows you to monitor directly ...

anyone want to buy a 002 rack ... virtually new !!

[EGS]

...26 tracks already with plug ins and all. We just wanted to do a few guitar and vocal overdubs. The buffer on our LE system had to be set at 1024...

You should be able to run that many tracks/plugs at 128 buffer. Did you try ALL the Digi suggested setups/troubleshooting steps listed above? Describe you MAC/LE setup and maybe we can help. What is the session sample rate?