trouble synchronizing playback of tracks

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George
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon Oct 01, 2007 2:26 am

trouble synchronizing playback of tracks

Post by George »

Hello,

Sorry if this was discussed elswhere. I recorded a track using a usb input then recorded a second track while the first track played (a second guitar part). What I heard while I made the second recording sounded very much in sync but what I heard after I played them both back was not at all in sync. Is there an easy way to fix this?

Marking some obvious points that should line up in the two tracks and moving them by dragging the second track till the marks were in line works only for tracks which contain music or events that are rhythmically in unison. I really need to find a way to get the tracks to record in sync to start with.

I have a G4 450mhz with a 1.25 Mgb hard drive -- I hope that is not the limiting factor. I did not seem to have this problem working with the Audacity recording software.

Thanks for any help you can give me. -- George

CDJonah_alt
Posts: 379
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2007 3:57 pm

trouble synchronizing playback of tracks

Post by CDJonah_alt »

What sort of input device were you using? (Almost?) every usb device
will have this problem.

Fixing it -- I haven't tried this, but I will toss it out anyway --
maybe it will work. Get the two things that should line up on scale, do
a selection between them to measure the length of time. Now go to the
beginning of the one that needs to be displayed and insert a silent
section of the appropriate length. I think that this difference should
remain constant -- you are dealing with the buffers in the usb driver --
both out and in.

Chuck

George wrote:
Hello,

Sorry if this was discussed elswhere. I recorded a track using a usb input then recorded a second track while the first track played (a second guitar part). What I heard while I made the second recording sounded very much in sync but what I heard after I played them both back was not at all in sync. Is there an easy way to fix this?
I did try a more involved way, that I also have a question about:
I tried marking some obvious points that should line up in the two tracks and moving them by dragging the second track till the marks were in line. However to even do this fix properly I need to do it with the view zoomed in a great deal. Then unfortunately I do not seem to have access to the ends of the track handles that I need to drag the second track in line with the first. Am I missing something, or is this simple function also not available? Thanks for any help you can give me. -- George




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George
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon Oct 01, 2007 2:26 am

Post by George »

Hi Chuck,

Thanks for the suggestion. It is much appreciated.

I am using a Behringer u-control uca202 audio interface (the company and reviews claim very low latency).

I'll see if I can figure out how to do what you suggest though I am wondering if it wouldn't be quite difficult with two very parts, rhythmically related, but not at all in unison. It seems to me it would be quite hard to get the playback to be close to what actually happened in the performance of the two parts.

George

CDJonah_alt
Posts: 379
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2007 3:57 pm

trouble synchronizing playback of tracks

Post by CDJonah_alt »

It is usb -- it has to have latency. Possibly you can change the buffer
size to minimize latency.

Why not record a sharp clap, feed it out and then back in? (maybe like
the classic movie clapper that we have seen for years). That should do
it. Since the latency should be determined by the buffer sizes, that
should give you a standard for all your work.

Chuck

George wrote:
Hi Chuck,

Thanks for the suggestion. It is much appreciated.

I am using a Behringer u-control uca202 audio interface (the company and reviews claim very low latency).

I'll see if I can figure out how to do what you suggest though I am wondering if it wouldn't be quite difficult with two very parts, rhythmically related, but not at all in unison. It seems to me it would be quite hard to get the playback to be close to what actually happened in the performance of the two parts.

George




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George
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon Oct 01, 2007 2:26 am

Post by George »

I think there is a better way that I can explain my problem so I am editing this post:

Yes indeed, I am using a usb audio interface on a mac g4 so of course there is a minimum latency, which ideally I would like to address later.

However, what I am getting is drastic -- not simply an echo or slap back effect. The problem, as I understand it, is that I do not see how to get the recording of a new track and the playback of the original track to start at the same time. I have to click the playback button first in order to hear the original track while recording a new track. The time it takes me, between clicking the play button, and clicking the record button for recording the second track, is going to be the length of delay between the two tracks when I play them back together. (That plus the very slight echo affect caused by the latency of the usb device -- not my major concern but I will try to address that later). I can try to manually move the new track afterwards -- drag the second track into place -- but this is time consuming and involves a lot of guess work -- especially if the two tracks do not contain many events that are meant to happen in unison (such as the two guitars playing music with the same rhythm).

It seems to me there should be a way to click one button to get both play of one track and record of other tracks to start at the same time. This happens automaticlly on some other software that I have such as Audacity though audacity does not have the same sound quality this glaring synchronization issue is not a problem.

I am thinking I must be missing something. Is there a way I can do this? Thanks again for your help.

George

griffokk
Posts: 9
Joined: Fri Nov 10, 2006 9:43 pm
Location: Oklahoma City

trouble synchronizing playback of tracks

Post by griffokk »

This has been my long-standing problem with Amadeus Pro ever since it was introduced. It is not a latency issue, it is a monitoring/syncrhonization issue. I and several others have brought this up before.

Unless and until Martin can resolve this issue, APro is unusable to me as a musical multitrack recording tool. I still use it for converting vinyl to digital, but have had to move on to Audacity for multitrack recording, despite Audacity's stability issues (on my admittedly ancient G4 Cube).


On Sep 30, 2007, at 11:54 PM, George wrote:
 However, I do not see how to get the recording and the playback to start at the same time. I have to click the playback button first in order to hear the original track I am playing along with. However long it takes me to click the record button is going to be however long the delay is between the two tracks when I play them back together after recording the second track. 

George
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon Oct 01, 2007 2:26 am

Post by George »

Wow, that is too bad. The first track, at least, recorded so nicely. Lack of that synchronizing ability would seem to make over half of the functions of Amedeus usesless -- or am I stretching the point? I hope we hear of an update on this soon. It seems like such a basic thing to correct.

Thanks, though, for your confirmation that I am not just incapable of reading manuals!

It is nice to hear of others working on the "old" G4 as well (not really so old). These machines should really be able to hold up so let's keep 'em going if at all possible.

In the mean time, best wishes and good luck.
George

George
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon Oct 01, 2007 2:26 am

Post by George »

Sorry it has taken me a while to report that Martin has made an update that fixed this problem! Much appreciated. :D

- George

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