Recording with wireless latency issues

[PaulWarning]

always been a bit sceptical about noticing latency, just putting the bass track down on a demo using my Boss WL20 wireless unit, I thought bloody hell my timings a bit out, then changed to a normal lead and everything was fine, well for me anyway.

Anybody else noticed this?

[WarPig]

I've had a similar issue with a USB interface, it was like I was using a delay pedal. Ended up buying a more modern one and the problem went. But yes, it was off putting trying to record on it.

[CameronJ]

This is odd. I play using my Boss WL20 (the “L” version) all the time and have never detected any latency. Do you only notice the issue when playing back a recorded track? You don’t notice it when actually recording the line?

[PaulWarning]

8 minutes ago, CameronJ said:

This is odd. I play using my Boss WL20 (the “L” version) all the time and have never detected any latency. Do you only notice the issue when playing back a recorded track? You don’t notice it when actually recording the line?

yes it sounded ok when I was doing the recording, but when I played it back it just sounded a bit out, thought it was my crap playing to start with but as soon as I switched to a lead it was fine, I recorded the guitar track as well with the Boss, that didn't sound spot on either but I use a lot of distortion so it was hardly noticeable.

I'm recording using Audacity and my laptop with a cheap USB soundcard, maybe it's too much digital stuff in the signal chain

Edited April 16, 2020 by PaulWarning

[EBS_freak]

It’s the cumulative latency of both the interface and the wireless unit that is getting you. A cheap USB interface is found to be introducing 7 or 8 ms of latency... so as soon as you go over 10ms, as you notice, things start to go a little wrong...

[beely]

Do you have any plug-ins on the track?

They can introduce a bit of latency.

[PaulWarning]

33 minutes ago, beely said:

Do you have any plug-ins on the track?

They can introduce a bit of latency.

no, just bog standard Audacity, I do any tweaking after I've recorded it

[lurksalot]

1 hour ago, EBS_freak said:

It’s the cumulative latency of both the interface and the wireless unit that is getting you. A cheap USB interface is found to be introducing 7 or 8 ms of latency... so as soon as you go over 10ms, as you notice, things start to go a little wrong...

I guess you can add on the monitoring latency as well , though I don’t know how much that plays out 

[YouMa]

What drivers are you using. Asio?

[linear]

When you record into a modern DAW using a USB interface, the DAW will automatically compensate for the latency as reported by the USB driver.  Audacity may not do this, and it certainly won't compensate for any latency introduced before the signal even gets to the recording interface.

I've encountered a situation where the USB driver was reporting the latency incorrectly, so I had to set the delay compensation manually in the DAW.  You can measure it by setting up a project with a single track with a bit of audio in it, ideally with a bit of silence before it starts, then connect the audio out to the recording in (in OP's case this would be the wireless transmitter) and record the first track looped back into a second track.  The second track will be the same as the first, but delayed.  Zoom right in to the wave form and measure the delay using the selection tool; and that's how much you need to compensate any recorded tracks by.

This only really works if the latency being introduced is constant, which it pretty much is if you are using an ASIO driver.  If you are not using ASIO, but the Windows MME audio stack, the latency can drift up and down depending on what else your PC happens to be up to at the time - which is less than ideal, to put it mildly.  Audacity don't distribute a version with ASIO support for licensing reasons, so the best you can do on Windows is make sure you are using WASAPI or DirectSound.

Of course, the best thing would be to not use Audacity for recording, but nobody who uses Audacity for recording seems to want to hear that.

[lowdown]

4 hours ago, linear said:

When you record into a modern DAW using a USB interface, the DAW will automatically compensate for the latency as reported by the USB driver.  Audacity may not do this, and it certainly won't compensate for any latency introduced before the signal even gets to the recording interface.

I've encountered a situation where the USB driver was reporting the latency incorrectly, so I had to set the delay compensation manually in the DAW.  You can measure it by setting up a project with a single track with a bit of audio in it, ideally with a bit of silence before it starts, then connect the audio out to the recording in (in OP's case this would be the wireless transmitter) and record the first track looped back into a second track.  The second track will be the same as the first, but delayed.  Zoom right in to the wave form and measure the delay using the selection tool; and that's how much you need to compensate any recorded tracks by.

This only really works if the latency being introduced is constant, which it pretty much is if you are using an ASIO driver.  If you are not using ASIO, but the Windows MME audio stack, the latency can drift up and down depending on what else your PC happens to be up to at the time - which is less than ideal, to put it mildly.  Audacity don't distribute a version with ASIO support for licensing reasons, so the best you can do on Windows is make sure you are using WASAPI or DirectSound.

Of course, the best thing would be to not use Audacity for recording, but nobody who uses Audacity for recording seems to want to hear that.

This.... Below is an example of set up.

Although he is using Studio One, it applies to any DAW using Asio. 

 

 

[PaulWarning]

8 hours ago, YouMa said:

What drivers are you using. Asio?

Can't remember, I just downloaded one off the internet, in fact I thought that was the name of the driver, it says MME in the audacity window.

But as I've said I've only ever noticed latency when using the Boss wireless system, it seems fine otherwise

Edited April 18, 2020 by PaulWarning

[YouMa]

Download Asio4all it's free. Try this first.

 

[linear]

1 hour ago, PaulWarning said:

Can't remember, I just downloaded one off the internet, in fact I thought that was the name of the driver, it says MME in the audacity window.

But as I've said I've only ever noticed latency when using the Boss wireless system, it seems fine otherwise

Simply switching to WASAPI or DirectSound should result in the latency (from the Windows side of things) being less variable, which can only be a good thing.

If you do the test linked to by lowdown you will be able to measure the total latency, including that being caused by your wireless system, and then it's simply a case of offsetting every recorded track by that amount after you record it.  I'd do the test a few times to check you're getting the same result each time.  If not, you'll need to take an average.

You'd need a way to connect your wireless transmitter to the output from your PC, so something like this

or, more likely a combination of whatever cables, jack coverters and gender changers you have to get the same result.

 

Edit: or just use a regular cable instead of wireless, which I realise now is really the best solution 😂

Edited April 18, 2020 by linear

[PaulWarning]

cheers guys for your input, I've dug down a bit, ASIO drivers will not work with Audacity without jumping through a lot of hoops, I've done various latency checks and adjusted Audacity accordingly (it was about 50 milliseconds out), strangely there was no noticeable difference between wireless and cable, must have just been the way I was playing  😂.

I'm not looking for perfection it's only a demo of a new song to give the rest of the band something to go on

[PaulWarning]

actually I've just another test using a microphone (play the click track through the speaker and record it, when I used the wireless unit this happened, first is the click track, second one is the mic connect directly and the third one is with the wireless unit in the loop