Recording direct to PC

[Lord of Delusions]

So I noticed my guitar was still sitting in the corner collecting dust and decided to shake it loose a bit. I got on the net and found not only some pretty simple recording software, but a damn cool virtual amp. Now, I got it all up and running, and so far I haven't spent a dime. My issue is, that because I plug the guitar directly into the comp (no preamp, just an adapter to go from 1/4 to 1/8 using the mic input on the soundcard), I have a bit of a delay from when I actually play a note to when I hear the sound. I did manage to get it from approx. 1 sec down to 400 ms or so, but its still enough to screw me up.

Hopefully some of you on here have some experience with this and can point me in the right direction. I don't want to spend a bunch of money, otherwise I would have just bought another amp and thrown a mic in front of it. I'm perfectly happy with the virtual amp, as its sound is great and has more effects and presets than I would ever use, I just want to get rid of the delay time. I'm guessing that a better sound card would help, or even some sort of preamp that doesn't use the mic input (I haven't really investigated that route very much and would really rather hear from people that use one as opposed to the sales pitch I would get in the catalog).

Thanks people!

 

[Archmagician]

I would recommend getting a Guitar Pod by Line6! Two damn thumbs up for that!!!

http://www.line6.com/podxt/

I have a PodXTLive and a BassPodXTLive and I love them. I cant rave enough about Line 6!

 

[spag]

400ms is huge. Really huge. I'm guessing you have an older sound card? The delay in Windows XP is typically in the 30ms for input, and 30ms for output range. This is because of some buffering the mixer for DirectX uses. I used to write audio software for some audio transmission companies, so hit this all the time. In the audio world, even 60ms is horrible.

There are some KS (kernal streaming) drivers used by some sound cards that can get you down to 2-3ms in loopback mode, but if the software is doing a lot of transformations on the audio, they might be buffering up to handle the delay. Steinburg developed ASIO for this problem as well, and similar short delays are possible. You're really at the mercy of the software writers. If they buffer up 100ms of audio each pass to work on it, then you're screwed no matter what you have.

To support this kind of thing though, yeah, you typically need to move outside the consumer audio card world and up to pro cards, but some of those aren't priced too bad. I haven't looked into the consumer cards for a while though, so it might be that Creative for example, might support this stuff. Who knows. Maybe look at something by http://www.echoaudio.com/, or Marian Marc 2. I've worked with both.

Actually, just looking, I found this page:

http://soundcards.electronicmusicworld.com/

Has a nice summary of some cards and even talks about the delays. Good luck.

 

[Lord of Delusions]

400ms is huge. Really huge. I'm guessing you have an older sound card? The delay in Windows XP is typically in the 30ms for input, and 30ms for output range. This is because of some buffering the mixer for DirectX uses. I used to write audio software for some audio transmission companies, so hit this all the time. In the audio world, even 60ms is horrible.

Actually I just bought this computer earlier this year, so it does have XP. I have noticed that I can run the guitar through the "line in" socket with no perceptable delay, and I'd go that route but for some reason I can't get my recording software to see it. Thanks for the links, I'll check them out!

 

[Schmidt_Rubin]

The Alesis USB model mixing boards come with software for recording to your pc, under $150 for everything. My Alesis is about 10"x10" and very clean.

 

[Timewarrior2001]

I would recommend getting a Guitar Pod by Line6! Two damn thumbs up for that!!!

http://www.line6.com/podxt/

I have a PodXTLive and a BassPodXTLive and I love them. I cant rave enough about Line 6!

I back that too, I bought one about 6 months ago and I love it.

I tend to use guitar rig instead of the bundled software, but riffworks is also a good starters piece of recording software.

As for soundcards, well I'd recommend a studio quality card, but failing that go for a Full duplex card and maybe try using an external effects board as your pre-amp.

 

[MiniMurray]

recording lag sux! when i upgraded xp to sp2 i started getting the same prob so i had to upgrade from my creative live! card to m audio. under a hun at GC and no lag with any prog. that's weird that your recording software doesn't see the line in but sees the mic ... perhaps that requires a default change in your sound and audio properties or with the recording prog? your using the mobo sound?

 

[Archmagician]

Or just try upgrading the drivers for your soundcard. This might be a good thing to call the sound card manuafacturer about....

 

[spideyjg]

Luckily nobody I asked ever told me home recording was easy.

If they did I would find them and beat them. :zombie: :zombie: :zombie:

I've gotten OK with audio but virtual instruments and drum programming....:zombie:

A friend of mine paid a consultant to come set up his system to ensure the softwares and stuff was working. It was all wonky. There are a lot of sound samples I have bought for various instruments but none work.

Gave up and bought a Alesis drum machine to create sounds.

Jim

 

[Archmagician]

Here is my drum machine!!!