Latency is when you play a note on your instrument and you hear a slight delay before it comes through the speakers on your DAW. Latency can make it difficult to record with any accuracy as the delay will throw off your timing. Any recording interface you use will have some latency, getting the lowest latency possible without any unwanted clicks or pops is your ultimate goal.
There are several options to reduce latency, such as changing software settings, upgrading hardware, creative monitoring, etc. Provided you have a decent amount of computer power, mostly RAM, you should be able tweak things to make it so you don't notice the latency.
First things first, make sure you have the LATEST driver and firmware updates for your device. Try and find an ASIO driver if possible (http://www.asio4all.com/). Depending on what software or hardware you are using, there should be a setting to reduce buffers. Find a nice balance where the latency is minimized and recording is not affected by unwanted noises or other playback issues.
There are some windows tweaks that will help to solve the issue. Make sure the computer you are using for your DAW, is just that...a DAW. If you can, get rid of every other program you don't need. If you don't have that luxury, look for any programs that may be resource hogs and kill them.
Some other things to do: Read More »
