reaper latency

domforr

One of those frustrating things with DAW recording. You record a great guitar take and then everything seems slightly off. Took me a while to realise it wasn't my playing but some time lag with the recording.

Any simple tips for reducing the latency lag in Reaper on a Mac?

I'm using an Audient ID14, no pedals - just straight into Scuffham Amps. 

Jalapeno

It isn't usually the DAW - it'll be the interface, sample rates and buffers ....

fretmeister

Make sure your version of Reaper and your drivers for your interface are up to date.
Can make quite a big difference if they aen't.

Then play with your buffer size until you get an acceptable balance between latency and sound quality. Too low and you'll get glitches as it increases the CPU load.

domforr

Thanks. I'll double check, but I think everything's up to date. So when recording it's best to keep the buffer size as low as possible? What's a recommended setting? 

John_A

As low as it’ll go without audio dropouts, crackles etc  Try 32, if it doesn’t work, try 64, 128 etc

domforr

Okay, will do thanks. 

andy_k

Have a look for the video Kenny did on setting up round trip latency, Reaper does a good job of compensating anyway, but theres a few tweaks you can do to set it up perfectly, you only need a drum hit sample to test things and you can set up an offset to suit your interface, what it reports to Reaper may not be 100% accurate.

domforr

Something along these lines? 

andy_k

I saw Kennys video, which shows the second method mentioned, which seemed simpler to me.
Send a transient heavy sample out through headphones and record into input. Measure difference in samples and set as offset.
Jon's version sounds more complicated, but is actually achieving the same thing with one of Reapers own plugins.
I am using the Scarlett 2 on a mac, and I think I got similar results, about 64 samples offset.
I do my tracking with buffers around 64-128, but set it back to 512 for mixing, if I remember, or if the system feels slow.

domforr

Thanks - do you have a link to that video? So I've changed the block size down to 128, but what about the media buffer size setting? Does this have an impact? What's the best setting here?

andy_k

I'm not sure about the media buffer settings, make note of any changes you make, I only change block sizes to suit what I am doing, as low as I can go when tracking, and 512 and up for mixing.

andy_k

If you are using Scufham, and monitoring, you will struggle to get it perfect, but I know Reaper has compensation for plugin latency too, my interface has direct monitoring, which would obviously only play a DI signal if I was doing the same as you, for this reason, I got an ABY splitter to be able to record an effected sound via Mooer Radar and pedals, and a straight DI which can then be processed with amp sims.
It also helps to only record to wav tracks and not be doing a lot of processing when tracking.
My setup is a 2009 MBP with 16 gig ram and is running off SSD, so I have quite a modest rig for recording.
You learn to work with what you got.

domforr

Yes, my setup is pretty similar 16 gb ram and 256ssd on an old mac mini. Sometimes I wish you could just play music without all of this technical stuff :-(. I don't think Bach had to deal with this.

andy_k

I think Bach had to use his imagination, and write it all down on paper.
You should be able to get close enough with your rig, just be a bit creative about the recording process, and try not to rely too heavily on a VST for your sound.

Jalapeno

andy_k said:

It also helps to only record to wav tracks and not be doing a lot of processing when tracking.
My setup is a 2009 MBP with 16 gig ram and is running off SSD, so I have quite a modest rig for recording.
You learn to work with what you got.

Agreed

I think it is a truism - that unless you're using the stuff day-in/day-out most of the tech gets in the way ....

domforr

Changing the buffer size seems to have helped. I'll take a look at the video as well and see if I can get my head around it. Thanks all.

domforr

That's a really great video - very easy to follow and should be easy enough to apply. Thanks!