Monitoring While Multitracking--w/o Latency?, How do I monitor during playback w/ USB? Options

[marley]

Hey Rockers,

I know similar topics have been beaten to death, but I can't find the answer to this specific question. I've got a 1.25 Ghz iMac with 1 Gb RAM, and I just bought a used M-Audio Duo to start multitrack recording. I am so far only using Garage Band, though I plan to advance from there, and I have found that playing through the software results in an unacceptable amount of latency, even on the "low latency" GB setting. I figured out how to use the "Stand Alone Mode" button on the Duo to monitor through the headphones without latency. That's great, but I can't find a good way to listen to my existing tracks while monitoring the track I am laying down.

What I've been doing so far is wearing headphones to monitor the live track from the Duo, and having the rest of the tracks play through the computer's speaker system. This sort of works, but is less than ideal. Is there a better solution, or is this a limitation of USB? I'm sure some of you smart people know how to get around this dilemma. I'd love to hear your suggestions.

Marley

[brimijoin]

you are just plain going to have latency issues with USB interfaces. I used the DUO for some time along with Deck 3.0 - I had no end of latency problems and it ended up making me move to Protools. But for projects and songwriting and whatnon, I always used this low tech stopgap method:

on your first track, before you record anything else, record 8 beats of a metronome. Then on the same track, lay down your guitar or drums or whatever you are recording first. Then when you overdub, you hear the 8 beats and you tap along to the last four beats (the first four are to get ready) and then play along with the track. Then when the new track is down, you just zoom in on the beginning and slide the new track until your taps are best lined up with the last four beats of the metronome.

repeat with each new track.

sounds silly, I know, but it works very well and it involves no extra money whatsover.

and then you can spend more to get a package that has automatic latency correction (weren't they working on that for Protools LE? anyone?) sometime when this method gets too darn annoying.