Hey guys, im super new to using any DAW and trying to figure this out.
In Cubase 13 artist, ive recorded a guitar chord track as one continuous track for the whole song, and did numerous takes with a usb mic. Then i recoded the vocal over it the same way, listening to the recorded cord track with wired headphones. I noticed immidiatly that I couldnt monitor it while I recorded the vocal because the delay was too bad. Between all the takes on the project, I know I played on beat with the click track, but all of those takes are delayed in the recordings. The vocal is also delayed from the chord track the same way. I wasnt able to record it listening to the click track due to the issue with the chord track.
How do i fix it?
I previously tried recording each section individually (intro, verse, chorus etc) with plans to splice them all together. After hours of working on it, i got 43 seconds of pretty seamless chords with good crossfades and no blips. I gave up that idea when I tried to align the first verse of vocals with what I had there, and decided to try to rerecord in a single track all the way through with multiple takes to try to be able to comp any mistakes out. Its a 5 minute song, so keeping on with my previous attempt seemed unrealistic.
What are you monitoring through as the usb mic is only the input interface? Cubase doesn’t support multiple interfaces so if on a pc you must be using something like asio4all. This means you are going through Cubase and out to hear yourself. What you are getting is latency. The only way is reduce the buffer size but it may not get low enough to be workable. What you really need is an audio interface and get rid of the usb mic. I never recommend anyone to get a usb mic as you can’t use it with an audio interface and it has to become an audio interface to work.
That makes sense. I am on a PC. The mic is a zoom h1n digital recorder (ive had it for ages) that has a direct input function. I am just listening straitght out of cubase, no dedicated audio interface. I had some driver issues, and used ASIO4ALL at first (cubase didnt like the zoom driver made for the recorder) but was able to switch back to the built in steinberg driver and configure the routing correctly.
Ill be getting an interface when I cycle back home to town in a month, but for now Im on a laptop in a tent in the middle of nowhere in Alaska (starlink is pretty impressive). The whole package I brought out is super compact and self sufficient which is sweet. My acoustic amp can run on AAs, which is important when you need to get away from background generator hum to mic anything. I have a direct in usb feature on the yamaha amp that has way less latency with an audio interface built-in into the amp, and Ive been able to use that with a click track in cubase before, but i forgot the cable and am waiting for it to get sent out on a plane. That also wont resolve my vocal issue.
In the mean time, is there a way i can realign my tracks or shift them all to fit the timing? The audio quality doesnt seem bad. It seems like the whole thing would just be offset by the amount of latency in the system (double that value for the vocal since I recorded it the same way but based on the already delayed chord track?)
Also, if you have any suggestions on interfaces - particularly ones that would work for my situation, carting around to the middle of nowhere and running them without access to power - Im very open to them.
It seems like I could get around it by recording audio into the digital recorder on its own, and then importing that audio into cubase each time maybe. Its added steps and much less intuitive for doing multiple takes, but maybe it would solve the latency issue. Is there a way to easily align that imported/pre-recorded audio track to the grid?
The amp also has a 3.5mm aux jack and a quarter inch phones jack. Maybe routing everything through the amp via the 3.5mm line out on the recorder would help? Even with a quarter inch plug to headphones into the amp, im not sure Id be able to monitor anything from cubase.
The latency should only be while monitoring and not what is recorded. So something else is happening. Usually this is compensated for, so everything should be in time. The chances are they are all out by the same amount so you could move them all together.
It maybe using the different record/playback with asio4all has caused the problem.