Trying to record drums in synch with guitar

[VEGANGELICA]

Hello, All,

I would like advice on how best to record drums so that they are in synch with my previously recorded vocals and/or electric guitar tracks using Sony's ACID Music Studio 7.0. The problem is that when I play along with the metronome, the drum tracks always have a delay that is longer than the delay that occurs with the vocals and guitar tracks, which are recorded separately.

I am using a fairly old Highball Unidirectional Dynamic Microphone, which I place down low in between my snare, floor tom and bass, and it does a decent job capturing all the sounds from the drum set. However, when I do recordings in time to the ACID Music Studio metronome (which I listen to through Vic Firth ear protecting ear phones), the actual drum track ends up with a slight delay that is *longer* than the delay that occurs with the guitar and vocal tracks (the guitar and vocals tracks are also always slightly delayed with respect to the metronome).

Since the delay with the drums is longer than with the vocals and guitar, the result is that the 3 tracks (guitar, vocals, and drums) do not line up (although the electric guitar, which I record with the microphone right in front of the amp, lines up with the vocals fairly well).

I have tried to compensate for the longer drum delay in two ways:

(1) When I play the drums, I try to play slightly in advance of the metronome tick (but sometimes this leads to the drums being too early when I overcompensate);

(2) I've tried to use ACID Music Studio 7.0 to add in a few milliseconds of time to the guitar and vocal tracks to delay them with respect to the sluggish drums, but have not gotten this to work. It seems as if all the tracks get the time delay added, and not just the non-drum tracks.

I would appreciate any suggestions you have for easily getting the drums in synch with the other instruments in recordings. I had thought it would be as simple as playing along with the metronome, because I hoped all recordings (drums, vocals, guitar) would have an equal time delay with respect to the metronome tick, but it isn't this simple.

Thanks!

--Erica

[PerFeCTioNThrUSileNCe]

Well...your first problem is the program. ACID isn't that great of a recording program.

What you're describing confuses me though. Is there any way you can bounce/export the song as an MP3 or AIFF file and upload it somewhere and post a link to it? I might be able to give a few suggestions if I hear exactly what you're talking about.

[VEGANGELICA]

Hi, PerFeCTioNThrUSileNCe (phew!),

Thanks for your reply.

Ahh...I feared ACID might be a problem since it was rather inexpensive. However, in this case I suspect the issue may simply be the delay caused by the sound traveling from my drums to the microphone 12 inches away from bass, snare, and tom. In contrast, when I'm playing the electric guitar or singing, I have the mike around 1-2 inches away from the amplifier and, well, me. Perhaps that 10 inches of difference is enough to cause the extra long time delay with the drum recordings. (If I were feeling motivated I would calculate the predicted time delay based on the speed of sound).

I have made a recording of a song including the drums (where I was trying to play ahead of the ACID metronome to compensate for the delay)...if you wish you go to my contact information you can get to my MySpace page and the first song that pops up is the one where I've tried to mesh the drums with the "first drafts" of the guitar and vocals.

Unfortunately, I don't think this will be very helpful in diagnosing my recording problem, PerFeCTioNThrUSileNCe, because the main observation you'll probably make is that the 3 tracks just don't line up well (I need to redo the guitar and vocals more carefully...and then try again with the drums). However, you are welcome to listen if you would like!

I suspect what I'm going to have to do is read more carefully what others have said about miking drum sets (Veridical Fiction appears to have an informative post about this).

Since you mention problems with ACID, I have found one problem with ACID that I can't seem to solve: when I am listening to the ACID program metronome through earphones while doing a recording (with all exterior speakers turned off), the sound of the metronome appears to bleed through electronically into the recording!! The PerFeCTioNist in me cringes, but I've accepted it for now.

Thanks again for your reply!

--Erica

[PerFeCTioNThrUSileNCe]

The delay being caused by the positioning of the microphone is not a likely cause. Sound travels fast enough that the difference of a few inches would have no noticeable effect on what you would hear when playing back the track. Using one micf definitely isn't the best way to record a drum kit though. When I get home from work I'll listen to your recordings and try to get a better idea of what you're experiencing.

[VEGANGELICA]

Hello again! Yes...I would have been surprised if 10 inches of difference in microphone position would cause the sound delay. Thanks for verifying sound travels fast enough such that my drum track delay shouldn't be due to that issue!

Say...when I record the drums for the second song on my myspace playlist, I'll plan to make a recording of the drums by themselves with the metronome as a single track, and will post it on the myspace page. That will probably be the best way to hear what I'm talking about with the drum track delay. I'll make an entry here when that is up, in case you'd like to listen to it. Thanks again for your interest in this issue. --Erica

[Freebase Dali]

Ok, Vegangelica...
Your problem definitely isn't microphone distance, because at the distances you're operating with, the only factors would be phasing if you're using more than one mic on a source.
The problem you're experiencing is "high latency". Latency is the amount of time that an audio signal takes to travel from the source to the destination, through your equipment/computer/whatever.

Latency issues like yours can be attributed to your music program, audio interface, and your computer's processing power itself. You'll never have zero latency, as it will ultimately take some time for any signal to pass through any medium, but generally 10 milliseconds of latency is considered fast enough for no noticeable effect. I operate my DAW at much higher latencies than 10 milliseconds and I have no noticeable issues unless I'm using input monitoring, so something is really impeding your audio signal.

There are ways to get around latency problems, but you have to identify the root of the problem.
Answer the following questions:

1. What audio interface/sound card are you using?
2. What are the specs of your PC? (Ram, processor, etc..)
3. Does Acid have any buffer settings? (playback buffer size, recording buffer size, etc..)
(Buffers are basically storage for audio to be used on demand. If your buffer size is large, you'll have more stable and consistent audio with less drop-outs, but your latency will be higher. The inverse of this is also true. Lowering your recording buffers will give you lower latency, but your PC must be able to handle the demand that puts on it.)

Those are three important factors in determining what kind of latency you'll be dealing with. Get back to me on that and we'll continue from there.

Also, just a couple observations here:
The fact that you get a constant delay value when recording instruments prior to the drums, that could be telling you a lot about how much your computer & sound card is being bogged down by the pre-existing audio that's being played while you're recording the drums.
To test this, you may want to experiment by recording in opposite and seeing if the last thing you record becomes the instrument that's delaying.
You'll also want to consider the fact that drum peaks are far sharper and have more attack than vocals and guitar, so obviously any drum delay you're getting will be more noticeable.

Also, in cases where latency is unable to be avoided, you can be sure that (if simple latency is your problem) the delay will be consistent along the entire recording of that specific track. What that means is you can select the delayed track and nudge it backwards until it lines up with the pre-existing audio.
If you try to do that and the delay is noticeably more/less and changes as the track goes on, you're not dealing with latency so much as a recording program fault and/or a problem with your sound card.

Also, I would definitely not try to manually compensate for delay while playing, as you're going to get some inconsistent recordings. Really, a metronome is best served for tracking the initial track (guitars maybe?), to which you can either sing to or play drums to without the use of a metronome by virtue of the fact that your initial track was recorded to one.

Anyway, I hope you got a good idea of what I'm talking about. Answer those questions and I'll be able to help a little more.

Thanks.

[Freebase Dali]

^ Heh...

[SATCHMO]

The moral of the story: Latency is indeed a bitch (or can be). Hit up a studio or maybe find someone with better equipment than you. Most independent engineers/producers are very gracious when it comes to helping others.

[Freebase Dali]

Originally Posted by SATCHMO

The moral of the story: Latency is indeed a bitch (or can be). Hit up a studio or maybe find someone with better equipment than you. Most independent engineers/producers are very gracious when it comes to helping others.

Latency problems can be solved.
I'm willing to stick with her until it is. It's always nice to have your recording options at your disposal. And it's a joy recording yourself.

But if she's simply trying to cut an album and get it out there, then yea, maybe she'd be better off connecting with someone who can record her.

[VEGANGELICA]

Freebase,
Thank you for explaining high latency and how to diagnose the root(s) of the problem. I will work on getting the answers to the three questions you posed.

I wonder if it is possible that I don't have the right/best sound card? When I got the ACID program, I simply installed it, read the (not-so-helpful) manual, did the online tutorial, plugged in the microphone into the computer, and (after changing computer settings so the microphone's input actually got used by the computer), I tried doing some voice recordings (which worked). When it came time to test out the electric guitar, I discovered through my naive experimentation that connecting the amplifier output to the computer microphone jack did not work (it gave odd distorted sounds...not at all like the actual guitar sounded), and after a little reading I decided it sounded as if I was missing the appropriate "sound card," because the computer wasn't able to process correctly the electric guitar signal straight from the amplifier and guitar. Rather than solving that problem I simply fell back to using the microphone placed 2 inches from the amplifier!

It is very true that the delayed drum recording was the last track to be recorded. I like your idea of reversing the order of my track recording, with drums first, to see if the system is indeed being bogged down by having prerecorded tracks. I generally end up with around 7 tracks on the screen (with only several being used) by the time I get to the drums...so I wouldn't be surprised if that causes some delay!

Yes, you are definitely right that trying to compensate by drumming before the beat did not work, because it gave inconsistent recordings, exactly like you said! I then hoped to do just what you suggest...play in time to the music, and use the computer to nudge the tracks so that they line up to my ear...but I could not figure out a way to add time to just one track (ACID always seemed to add time to *all* the tracks). I will investigate this more, though, because a lot of my problems obviously stem from me not knowing enough about the program or the computer.

I will also try doing what you advised when recording, which was to use the metronome for recording the first track only. That makes sense, given that the goal is to have the tracks mesh with each other.

Thanks for taking the time to give such a thorough response. Your answers to people's questions are always helpful and detailed, and I am honored to have received some!

Jmhdrumm3r17, I will work on my human metronome skills!

--Erica