It doesn’t seem to happen all the time, but in some of my projects the VST instruments latency is intolerable. The Studio Setup > Audio System shows 14 ms output latency. I’m using Asio4all on Windows 10 x64.
No matter how I tweak the latency/buffer settings the audible latency won’t change. It sounds about 500-700 ms (0.5-0.7 seconds!). I press the keys and the sound comes out much later.
Does anybody have any idea what causes this, and how to fix it?
ASIO4all is not known for very low latency.
Use a real audio interface instead.
It can also happen if you have high latency effect plugins in the active (=record enabled) signal chain. That can be on a group, the master bus or even the control room.
If that is the case, you can click “Constrain Delay Compensation” (the clock symbol top left) or use ALT-C which will disable all high latency plugins in the signal path.
That definitely sounds like you have plugins in the path causing it. Asio4all is not great but it’s not that bad.
I can use ASIO4ALL with a Realtek soundchip on a laptop just fine (= reasonable latency). Please refrain from making statements that are simply not true.
It means
and yes, there could be other reasons for delays during recording.
But without the basic information on the used components, it’s guesswork.
OP mentioned 500ms latency. I have 46ms latency.
You are not helping.
Yes. Sorry. I’m gone.
I’m curious. Is there a reason you don’t spring for an external device? I know Cubase is already pretty expensive, but USB interfaces are reasonably-priced these days. My Presonus Studio24c set me back around $150 about two years ago. I did have a $50 M-Audio interface but it’s not a well-grounded unit (plastic shell), so I got a lot of hum with my guitars.
I have 2 external audio interfaces, one is in my studio: Behringer UMC1820 (19"), the other is Presonus Audiobox USB 96 unused. I mostly create new music on my main “bedroom PC” and later develop further + mix and master in the studio.
It proved very cumbersome to have 2 separate sound sources on my PC – one for videos, gaming, music, etc., and the other one for Cubase.
However, now that I think about this, would it work if I used the Audiobox with its outputs going to my internal sound card (Asus Xonar Essence STX) so I can hear both sound sources at the same time if needed? Then there’s no exclusive hijacking. I can follow Youtube tutorials without having to close Cubase in order to hear other sounds.
And back to the latency issue, I guess fese was maybe right, there must be a VST instrument that causes this lag, but I can’t figure out which one. I can’t see a “clock” symbol anywhere. I looked everywhere: Inspector, Channel settings, the instrument itself, MixConsole. ALT-C had no effect on anything, it did nothing.
I’ve always had two interfaces on my computer: RME FF800 for audio work, and an old Line6 TonePort for Windows system audio. I like it much better than using the built in audio on the MOBO plus, the TonePort has a nice big volume knob right there, and an instrument jack in front so I can plug a guitar in real quick to use with TH-U or POD Farm, and it let’s me do quick, easy audio routing from Windows into Cubase to record audio from online or other sources not routed through my FF.
VST instruments rarely introduce much latency, it’s VST effects like some limiters, linear phase EQs or pitch correction plugins.
The constrain delay compensation is explained here:
You can see the latency for each channel in the mix console: