The delay in the sequencer can ruin the recording and become a serious obstacle to high-quality accumulation. We have selected 4 tips for you to minimize this annoying factor.
1. Remove unnecessary buffers
A sound buffer is a small, permanent virtual space that your computer uses to store sound in the interval between its formation, transferring it to software and vice versa (so you can hear it). In practice, this takes a very short time – fractions of a second. But since musical performance is so critical over time, even a few milliseconds of delay can be enough to ruin a recording. Even the 1/4-second interval between playing a note and listening to the result will make you angry.
Setting a low buffer size (256 samples or lower) will reduce the delay. The lower the better. However, this will increase the processor load, as your computer must process audio even faster. This can lead to program crashes, especially if PC performance is poor. The key is to find a balance of CPU usage and low latency for a particular computer.
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2. Freeze tracks
Want to add a few more tools, but the project is already going hard?
Each modern program has a function such as freezing tracks. The sequencer saves all processing, creates a new wave track, which facilitates the work of the computer. If you need to change a few notes in a MIDI file or adjust the equalizer – you can unfreeze it, make changes and freeze it back. This will facilitate the reproduction and delay of the project.
3. Use direct monitoring
Some hardware sound cards have a direct monitoring function. When recording through the microphone or instrument input, the sound goes directly to the headphones, and then to the DAW program, which prevents delays. The disadvantage is that you cannot hear the guitar (or other instrument) playing with effects such as reverb if your interface does not have built-in DSP effects.
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4. Update drivers
This applies to almost any software, but is especially important when recording sound. A sound card, a sequencer, a computer can fail, and a solution to this problem could be updating the drivers. Outdated drivers often conflict with new operating systems, which causes program crashes.