hi i have a small problem i want ot use my computer as a daw i have got a phonic helix board 24 firewire which is mint for live recording as a band but i want to record one member at a time and the latency is a problem what is the best way to solve it? is it to buy a pci interface like the m-audio delta 66 and use that for the guitars and that as it does not have any latency problems which saves me spending lots of money on pci cards and preamps so i have more than 4 inputs?
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yeah i am new to this i had a portastudio before but it was limi
yeah i am new to this i had a portastudio before but it was limited because i could only record 8 mics at one time so i started looking at using my pc, i only got the Phonic as i read good reviews on it and i was able to record more than 8 mics at one time, yeah i read the manual it states that i can change some of the set up to limit the latency
my pc is running windows xp i have altered some of the settings after reading a article in music tech which made cubase run loads better,
i have tryed recording my self playing the guitar and it seems the main prob is, if i am using the desk to listen to me playing the guitar via cubase its out but if i listen direct off the desk its fine just need to get the band in to see if its all recorded right.
thanks for ur help
OK Andy666, welcome to RO. You are obviously quite new to audio
OK Andy666, welcome to RO. You are obviously quite new to audio recording on a PC. There is a lot to read before you actually step into this way of recording, but it looks like you skipped it. I don't know anything about your PC so I am just going to assume you have a Windows PC running XP SP2.
In a nutshell:
Latency is caused by several factors. State of OS, Chipset, CPU, FW chipset, compatibility, old faulty driver, no driver etc.
While the Phonic brand isn't exactly state of the art it should allow you some decent multitracking in the way you describe.
First let me list some of the things that can be easily done:
Did you read the manual?
Do you have the latest driver installed?
Does your PC meet the hardware requirements mentioned in the manual of the Phonic and Cubase LE.
Is your OS geared towards audio? Google some, the standard settings are easily obtained.
Do you already use a separate drive for audio?
It looks like your board will work over USB as well as FW. Did you try both?
Using FW you may suffer from the XP SP2 / FW issue. Make sure you have SP3 installed, that will remedy the FW cap. Or look for "1394 performance" on MicroSoft's knowledge base.
Did you check the Phonic support pages?
If latency is still hard to attain, try using only the inputs you need (de-activate in Cubase) and use no plugins until you are ready to begin mixing, because at that time the latency won't matter as much.
Good luck with your homework and recordings.