Latency Problem all of the sudden
 

I recently started a new project, and all of the sudden I have issues with latency. I laid down a MIDI drum track and then overdubbed electric guitar--straight, no plug-ins. Used all of the settings I have always used for years--256 buffer, 6 processors, no delay compensation. But before I even start recording, the guitar signal keeps dropping out. I tried to record anyway (it doesn't drop out during recording), but the latency is very noticeable. The drop outs go away if I increase buffer size, but 256 is already pushing it in terms of being on beat.

The only change I made recently was an install of EZ Drummer. But the problem persists even if I use my old BFD plug in.

I have read lots of threads on this, but can't find a solution. I trashed prefs, etc. But nothing has worked. Could it be my external hard drive crapping out? It does have some miles on it.

Can anyone help me? Thanks

Re: Latency Problem all of the sudden
 

First thing you need to do is back up everything on that drive to another drive. If its a signal that its dying, back up the data right now(no really....close your browser and back that stuff up!!!!).

Now that you backed up all your files, I would think a very sensible move would be to replace the drive ASAP(and get a high-quality and fast drive). Not sure how knowledgeable you are on this, so I'll assume the worst and tell you to get a drive that is suitable for 2 things; your computer, and speed. By "your computer", I mean what kind of connections are available on it?If its a desktop that can take more internal drives, that will likely be the route to best performance. Assuming SATA connections, I would get the largest WD Caviar Black drive that budget allows(many will scoff at this and tell you to get an SSD, but since I just had a nearly new SSD lose half of my sessions, I'll stick with spinning drives(I suspect it may be heat related, but don't have a solid method to cool the SSD, so I will use that for backups ONLY). USB3 would be my next choice(for external), but you still want speed, so SSD or 7200 rpm. Copy some sessions over to the new drive and run them to see if things are now better.

If that solves it, great! If not, sadly, you may be stuck restoring your system drive from scratch, or restoring from a drive image. I just went thru this on my rig where performance suddenly went totally sour(could not run a session with a click track and MiniGrand at the 64 buffer). After trying a bunch of things, I restored to a drive image from several months ago(when things were running great) and now its back to running great(I did need to install some recent plugin purchases again).

Re: Latency Problem all of the sudden
 

Thanks so much for the detailed reply.

So you think the hard drive is likely the issue? If so, that’s easy enough to fix.

Re: Latency Problem all of the sudden
 

No disk will not be causing signal to 'fade out'. But before you mess around with anything do make sure you have your sessions safely backed up.

You are reporting several problems. They may or may not be related. Start at one end and pull on the string and see where that takes. Nobody here is likely to be able to guess what the problem is.

If guitar signals are fading out then try solving/checking for that.

Is the dry guitar signal getting to the preamp reliably? Guitar or cable or DI box or preamp problem? Start at one end and follow stuff though and try to reproduce the glitch. Do you mean drop out and not get recorded or do you mean drop out in the monitor...or both? And how are you monitoring that guitar signal? -- through an interface hardware monitor? Or Pro Tools or what? ... if if does not drop out during recording is that because you are motoring though hardware monitoring?

Latency can only be caused by plugins or IO buffer or some routing you are doing that takes a signal though multiple IO buffers or plugins, and maybe you are missing that routing. You are on Pro Tools 10 so you are not messing with split IO buffers which excludes some issues.

If what you changed recently to install a plugin uninstall it, or at least move it's .aaxplugin files out of the plugin folder. Just not using it won't necessarily prevent it from causing problems although latency is unlikely to be one. And trash prefs.

Make sure ignore errors is not checked as that increases the latency.

Start with an empty session and one mono audio track and record a signal and work out what the latency is...

Re: Latency Problem all of the sudden
 

Started a new session. I tried recording with the “direct monitor” option enabled on my Scarlett, and there was no latency problem at all. Turned it off and tried again, and had the same problem as before. It seems that the guitar track is about .02 seconds ahead of the beat. If I nudge it that much, it sounds ok.

So the problem remains. I did trash prefs.

Re: Latency Problem all of the sudden
 

OK what is the buffer size and sample rate are you running running at... that tells you what latency to expect... you can compare that to what you see. You can also put your timeline in sample display mode that's easier to think about.

But you are saying something different happened? .. or were you just using hardware minoring before and accidentally switched to software monitoring?
Work out wether you really want to hardware or software monitor,.. that's up to you.

What is your "beat?" For troubleshooting record a click track down to an audio track. Get you session so you only have two audio tracks, one click and one you record to. Turn off latency comp. Don't use any plugins. What you measure should match you buffer size plus additional latency (pro tools standard does not shift the recording to compensate for conversion latency). Try with different buffer sizes and see what is going on. A good interface should be able to do 64 to 128 sample IO buffer especially for small sessions. If not then you have everything well set up... like using an ASIO driver. Hopefully your interface has an ASIO driver and you are not using ASIO4ALL. And on windows you have to pay attention to all systems optimizations, including BIOS settings.

Re: Latency Problem all of the sudden
 

I don’t understand some of the stuff you’re referring to. I’ll try to answer what I can. I am recording at 24/48. Buffer at 256. I switched to monitoring through the hardware, and that’s when the latency went away. I guess I can continue recording that way, but I would like to be able to hear the plug-ins while recording. And I’ve never had a problem with that in the past.

I was using a click track plug-in and recording the guitar directly into my interface.

I don’t know if I have an ASIO driver or what.

Re: Latency Problem all of the sudden
 

For most players, 256 is going to cause too much latency. I do all my tracking at the 64 setting. That yields very slight latency(which doesn't bother most players) but it does put more stress on the computer. That's why it pays to use a computer that is above the minimum spec. Here are some basic "lessons" on latency:
#1- it can be caused by a few things:
A-the playback buffer(smaller number=less latency)
B-sample rate. This will give less latency, BUT will tax the computer more if you compare 48K to 96K
C-plugin latency. Some plugins have little to no latency while others could have hundreds or thousands of samples worth of latency, so choose wisely while tracking. If you set your MIX window to show Delay Compensation(View>MIX window shows>), then you can see numbers along the bottom of the MIX window showing latency caused by plugins. Look to keep that number very low while recording(like under 10-15 samples). If you see big numbers of Delay Compensation, make those plugins inactive while tracking.
#2-latency can also be caused by bad routing(which confuses the Delay Compensation). The best example of this would be having a send on the track you are recording, but that send goes nowhere.

System tweaks can make or break performance, so don't ignore them. Hope something here helps:o

Re: Latency Problem all of the sudden
 

Thanks. I was going at 256 because lower settings wouldn’t work at all. What annoys me is that I never had a problem before. I don’t understand what could’ve changed to cause this issue.

Re: Latency Problem all of the sudden
 

Been trying to record, and now it seems like things are getting slower. When I’m testing my guitar signal through the monitor before I hit record, it cuts out a lot. Then when I track, I can hear the guitar but the drums don’t make any sound for a few seconds. They come in suddenly, and take a second to match up with the beat.

Could this be my hard drive crapping out? Or my second hard drive?