How to get the Minimum Latency of your Sound Card

Of course I won't tell you to afford a pc with as much cpu and ram as possible. You already know that. I'll tell you a couple of tips to make your pc less "laggy".


Let's go:

1) Clean up your pc. Dont make tweaks yet, just format your disk drive and re-install your Operating System.

2) Avoid using Anti-Virus since it takes lots of cpu and ram.

3) Don't connect to the Internet unless you have some important updates to download. Stay safe.

4) Get the latest driver of your sound card.

5) Scan a cd or flash drive to a second pc with an antivirus.

6) Avoid installing, reinstalling and uninstalling again and again and again... and again.

7) Don't install programs unrelated to music production. Make your pc an only-for-recording-and-nothing-else pc. (wtf did i just say)


And now its tweak tiiiime! I know, I know, for one moment you thought that there won't be something to tweak Tweaking and turning knobs is temptating right?


Well now that your pc has more "powaaar" you can "push" it more.
The secret is to go to your DAW preferences and adjust the Buffer Size of your Sound Card like this:




Lowest the buffer size = lowest latency of your sound card & more cpu power/more glitches
Highest the buffer size = higher latency of your sound card & less cpu power/ almost no glitches

Find the sweet spot

2 more things i'd like to add.

You can use larger buffer sizes (means less cpu and glitches) when:


1) You are done recording (especially with virtual simulator) and latency is not an issue for you

2) your projects has multiple tracks with lots of FX added.


Cheers!

Thank you soo much Sender. =] Exactly what I was looking for.

Awesome tips! Thanks a lot

so your using an M audio Fast Track Ultra. Would you recommend it to anyone? also what's the lowest latency you get on it?

Like I posted a couple days ago, I have an m audio fast track, and the lowest latency I can get on it is about 5ms, and i'm really looking into buying a better sound card interface.

J3FFR3Y2692 wrote:

so your using an M audio Fast Track Ultra. Would you recommend it to anyone? also what's the lowest latency you get on it?

Like I posted a couple days ago, I have an m audio fast track, and the lowest latency I can get on it is about 5ms, and i'm really looking into buying a better sound card interface.

well i have to say that i have firewire solo. the picture above is taken from google.

with firewire solo i get minimum 7ms and 5ms are pretty good in my opinion.

The main difference of ultra version is the ability to record 8 separate tracks simultaneously. same hardware same latency

hey

i have a pci soundcard and in bios there a option you can increase o decrease the value its call "PCI LATENCY TIMER"
if i increase the value i can have a better performance?

hey anders,
all of us had to move to a new forum,
Join here
http://mixingtips.org/forum/index.php

and make a new topic with your question, im sure you'll get your answer really quick