Reduce Latency in Ableton Live
Are you experienced
some Latency issues?: Since that
Syntheway VST Plugins does not consume many resources, you can
try reduce latency in Ableton Live.
Latency is a term that
used to be bandied about a lot in digital music, but with computer
speeds increasing exponentially over the last several years, it's
largely become a non-issue... For a few.
Yet, if you've gotten
in to any big projects, do any form of live performance involving
real-time processing from a computer, or just like using
virtual instruments
soft synths,
you will find out about latency soon, if you haven't already.
Before we go any
further, perhaps we should actually talk about what latency is. When
you are running real-time sound in to a computer, be it through a
built-in MacBook input, or an audio device, there can be a lag in
what you hear, and what's played back via
Ableton Live.
Let's start by giving a simpler example. If I have my voice running
in to a live recording input on a computer, and my latency is low, I
might notice that I hear my self slightly behind what I'm actually
singing.
Another example: I'm
running a softsynth, and I play a key on my keyboard. After I play
the key, it seems like there's a slight lag behind touching the key,
and hearing the sound.
How Latency
Affects Ableton
Latency is a big deal in
Ableton for all the scenarios above, and it's of the utmost
importance that you verify that you are running at 0 latency through
the tips I'm about to give you.
Step 1 - Go to
Preferences
Within the preferences
menu of Ableton go to the Audio page. This is where you go to set up
your soundcard, built-in audio device, and your audio inputs. There
are a few other sections within this area that are handy to know
about like Sample Rate, etc, but we can get in to this at another
time.
Step 2 - Verify Your
Latency
Handily enough, at the
bottom of the Latency section of the audio page, Ableton will
actually tell you how bad your latency is currently.
If you examine my
current settings, at the very bottom of this figure, you'll notice
that I have an Overall Latency of 11.4 ms. This means that it will
take 11ms for you to hear me whistle Twinkle Twinkle after I
whistle it in to a microphone, while I have a real-time input setup
within Ableton.
The actual goal is for
the Overall Latency to be 0ms. So, how do we make this happen.
Step 3 - Adjusting Your
Settings
Your Overall Latency is
determined by two things:
Generally, speaking,
the lower the buffer size, the lower the latency. However, Ableton
can be a little weird in this manner. Realistically, the lower the
buffer size, the harder your computer works.
My general default
setting when starting out with a new computer is 256. If you
computer hiccups, or acts up, move to 512. You can modify this by
dragging the number in the Buffer Size section, or clicking and
typing your desired number.
Next, modify your Driver Error Compensation. My trick for this
is to switch from MS, to SMP, this gives you more room to fine
tune.
You can directly type
in a number, but for us mathematically challenged, simply dragging
the number up and down till the Overall Latency says 0, is the
easiest way to go about it.
And, with a simple
flick of the mouse, my Overall Latency is at 0, and I can go about
my work, knowing that I'll be able to whistle Twinkle Twinkle with
no delay, whatsoever. Keep in mind, if you change sound devices, you
will probably need to reset this. But, since you know how to do it
now, that's not a problem!
Special Thanks to G.W. Childs IV
ASIO drivers are a fine alternative to native
Windows audio I/O drivers for many machines. Since the release of the freeware
ASIO4ALL driver pack, improved performance and reduced latency are now in reach
of even modest host CPUs.
