Reaper Latency

[Stub Mandrel]

After watching a tutorial I managed to record a simple midi drum loop, but had to do a lot of quantisation that made me feel like I had no sense of rhythm at all.

I then recorded some bass that sounded terrible. Looking at the 'waveform' I realised that it was out of synch, and by 'nudging' it by about 30-40 milliseconds I got it to line up.

For practical reasons I'm using my desktop which is quite slow so these are much worse than the tiny tweaks I had to make on my laptop (in fact I put those down to my playing, I realise now they were just small latency errors).

I assume the latency delay is consistent and can be calculated and allowed for so I can just play soemthinga nd it lines up? Can someone explain how in simple language?

(P.S. my expired trial licence for Reaper but now free until  February - I will probably buy it when this ends)

[Ricky 4000]

Top right corner should show which audio driver you're using, and latency in ms:

If you right-click on the track after recording, and select 'Nudge/set items', you can kick it to the right place. As you already did. 🙂

Edited December 30, 2020 by Ricky 4000

[Ricky 4000]

My recordings need a nudge to the left, even though the default setting at the bottom of the list here would suggest that the latency is taken care of:

[hubrad]

I've been using and enjoying Reaper this year, having got a Focusrite interface about 2 weeks before lockdown in March.. unusually good timing for once!

The focusrite has a direct monitor button, which makes a small but audible difference. If I don't mute the active track in Reaper, I get a kinda chorusing effect. 

I'd imagine that if I didn't use the direct monitor (no latency, as I'm coming straight back out of what is an external soundcard) I'd be consistently just off.

Same result whether on desktop or laptop. 

[lowdown]

1 hour ago, Stub Mandrel said:

After watching a tutorial I managed to record a simple midi drum loop, but had to do a lot of quantisation that made me feel like I had no sense of rhythm at all.

I then recorded some bass that sounded terrible. Looking at the 'waveform' I realised that it was out of synch, and by 'nudging' it by about 30-40 milliseconds I got it to line up.

For practical reasons I'm using my desktop which is quite slow so these are much worse than the tiny tweaks I had to make on my laptop (in fact I put those down to my playing, I realise now they were just small latency errors).

I assume the latency delay is consistent and can be calculated and allowed for so I can just play soemthinga nd it lines up? Can someone explain how in simple language?

(P.S. my expired trial licence for Reaper but now free until  February - I will probably buy it when this ends)

 

 Loopback Test and Record Offset:

Direct monitoring doesn't mean your recorded Audio will line up and sync. Below is a useful video explaining this.

Although this set up is demonstrated in Presonus Studio One, it applies to all DAW's. (there are probably Reaper and other Vendor DAW videos out there).

It's a one time set up of your Audio interface, including Midi and virtual Instruments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

demonstrate

Edited December 30, 2020 by lowdown

[Ricky 4000]

 

 

Edited December 30, 2020 by Ricky 4000

[Ricky 4000]

4 hours ago, lowdown said:

Direct monitoring doesn't mean your recorded Audio will line up and sync.

I'm scared to do the test by connecting the phones out to a line in on my mixer, so I give my parts a 10ms kick to the left after recording.

Always better to be early than late! 😃

[Richard R]

12 hours ago, Ricky 4000 said:

My recordings need a nudge to the left, even though the default setting at the bottom of the list here would suggest that the latency is taken care of:

My interface usually reports 63ms latency, but I was still out and estimated the total to actually be about 80. So I untick the "Use audio driver reported latency" and put in 80ms. That seems consistent, certainly more consistent than my playing!

Reaper is fantastic VFM, you can install it on up to 5 machines for non-simultaneous use, and the license covers you for all the revisions of one major update.

 

 

[Stub Mandrel]

Thanks folks!

My Scarlett is in storage so using the soundcard which probably makes things worse.

I will experiment, but I have to do some work first.

[skidder652003]

As a slight aside, Reaper doesn’t have an expiry date as a trial. You could use it indefinitely if you chose to. That’s one reason it’s such an amazing product 

[Stub Mandrel]

14 minutes ago, skidder652003 said:

As a slight aside, Reaper doesn’t have an expiry date as a trial. You could use it indefinitely if you chose to. That’s one reason it’s such an amazing product 

That combined with a fair price makes me more likely to buy it. I use such things rarely until I know how to 'fly them' which makes me unwillingt o buy expensive software after only a short trial.