Creative Blaster pci

Scuff

I've got a creative blaster 4.1 pci card and when I record my guitar through it there is a delay from when I play until it reaches the speakers. I know this isn't a recording forum but maybe somebody knows how to rid the delay?
Or is it just a card not for recording? Ideas?

Spinner

Scuff wrote:

I've got a creative blaster 4.1 pci card and when I record my guitar through it there is a delay from when I play until it reaches the speakers. I know this isn't a recording forum but maybe somebody knows how to rid the delay?
Or is it just a card not for recording? Ideas?

The cards just not for recording. I mean to be fair, when using a direct line, you shouldn't have any latency problems in Windows itself. But there are a lot of factors involved, system specs etc etc. Latency is common, even amoungst cards like the Sound Blaster Audigy, but this time delay should only really be apparent upon playback rather than real time monitoring. i.e you lay a guitar track over some backing music, which while recording sounds in time, but upon playback the recorded guitar track is out of sync.

Perhaps you're monitoring the sound input incorrectly. Does it still do it when you aren't using any third party applications, i.e just in Windows itself with the line-in un-muted. If it also does it while just in Windows, then perhaps yes, there is a problem which needs dealing with, but if not, it may be just a case of getting better recording software or more realistically better sound hardware.

Scuff

I' m using Cakewalk MC 2003 and the delay is in real time(while i'm playing). Like I hit a note and about a second later it comes through the speakers

primesuspect

Welcome to the wonderful world of latency. In pro audio circles, latency is satan himself.

People spend thousands of dollars to rid themselves of latency.

The card you have is just plain and simple, as spinner said, not designed for recording. You need a low-latency audio card which is designed for recording. Pro audio card manufacturers focus on writing very specific and robust low-latency WDM and GSIO drivers (GSIO being GigaStudio I/O - a high end software synth and also a spec to go with it)

That's why I bought a Delta 410 Card.. For $99 you can't really get anything cheaper for pro audio recording. Some manufacturers of pro audio cards and the corresponding low-latency drivers are M-Audio, CreamWare, Aardvark, EchoAudio, and Mark of the Unicorn.

Scuff

ok Spinner and Prime what do you think about recording on an analogue(cassette) 8 track(Yamaha), mixing it down through a mixer (Behringer 802) to a JVC cassette then running that mix into Cakewalk as one track through the line in of the SB card, that should rid the delay times, because it will all be one track and I won't need to play over it. The only problem/benefit I can think of is the sound quality loss / gain of warmth maybe.

primesuspect

You will experience a loss of quality, to be sure, but I think that it will be better than trying to get that sound blaster to record in real time.

//EDIT:

I have the same mixer.

Spinner

I haven't done any recording on my new rig yet, but when I was recording last year on my Audigy 1 and 2000+ based RAID system, I still got resulting playback latency. I just had to re-align the out of sync track manually. I still find it a bit strange that you have real time latency problems when just listening to your line input. But either way, if you are serious about recording, or at least serious about recording without pulling your hair out every 5 seconds, a better soundcard would be the order of the day. The 4.1 just can't cut the mustard in this field.