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Best Way To Measure Latency


bugscoe

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I just had a bass guitarist track some parts for me.

 

In playing them back they are a little off beat due to the latency.

 

I'd like to be able to measure how many samples and/or milliseconds I need to offset them by.

 

What's the best way to go about this?

 

FWIW, internal buffer was set at 128 and it says below that the "Resulting Roundtrip Latency 8.3 ms". Is that what they're off by?

 

Bass was tracked from a UA2-610>Fatso>MOTU 1296.

 

Thanks!

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I just had a bass guitarist track some parts for me.

 

In playing them back they are a little off beat due to the latency.

 

I'd like to be able to measure how many samples and/or milliseconds I need to offset them by.

 

What's the best way to go about this?

 

FWIW, internal buffer was set at 128 and it says below that the "Resulting Roundtrip Latency 8.3 ms". Is that what they're off by?

 

Bass was tracked from a UA2-610>Fatso>MOTU 1296.

 

Thanks!

 

Roundtrip latency refers to how long it takes the audio to get from the sound source into the computer, through Logic's mix buss, and back out to your monitors. It's not always related to the issue you describe.

 

If you're dealing with a pro-level bassist who really plays in the pocket, and every note is consistently the same amount early or late, then it is probably an issue where the computer mis-compensated for latency and placed the audio at the wrong spot. In that case, I would start by zooming in quite far, and moving the bass track by eye while checking a couple of notes of bass against a couple equivalent notes on another track. Then I would fine-tune it by ear.

 

If each note is off by a different amount, and/or if some are early and some late, then the bassist was simply playing inconsistently. (Latency may or may not be a valid excuse why one might be distracted enough to play off beat.) If that's the case, you'll want to use a combination of Flex Time to quantize the audio, and editing by hand.

 

Assuming it is an interface-related problem, the way to recalibrate your system is to do a loopback test:

 

http://logicprohelp.com/viewtopic.php?p=58123#58123

 

Good luck,

 

Matt

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Hey Matt, thanks for the reply.

 

The bass player was right in the pocket when tracking so I've been doing like you suggested, just nudging the audio until it sounds/feels right. I hate to have to do this since I feel I'm jeopardizing the performance, but...

 

I'm new to Logic (coming off of DP) so this is the first time I've tracked a musician in Logic. No issues on monitoring latency thanks to the MOTU Cuemix feature. Just need to hammer the other end out.

 

I see you're in St Paul. I'm right up the road in Lino Lakes.

 

Greg

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  • 2 weeks later...

Figured out my issue.

 

Once I removed all software plug ins from the master channel and deselected the Software Monitoring button, my recording latencies vanished.

 

Not sure if it was one or a combo of both but I know what not to do next time.

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