On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 03:13:16 UTC, Manu wrote:
On 13 December 2013 04:52, John Colvin
<john.loughran.col...@gmail.com>wrote:
On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 18:31:58 UTC, Joseph Rushton
Wakeling
wrote:
On 12/12/13 19:15, Iain Buclaw wrote:
You know, I've never had that... but then again I haven't
had the
fortune of being in a band where distance between the first
and back
musicians is > 200 metres. (Because sound doesn't travel
*that* slow
;)
Well, it's not _just_ about the speed of sound, there are
also things
like the speed of attack of different instruments and so on.
Then again, ever been to a performance of one of those pieces
that ask
for some musicians to be placed in different locations round
the back of
the concert hall for spatial effects? Things can get fun
with that ... :-)
Only in the recording studio - if the time it takes for
sound to leave
your instrument, into the microphone, through the walls into
the
studio booth, into the mixer (and assuming digital) from the
mixer to
the sound card, to the DAW software mixer which is taking the
recording and mixing it in with the playing tracks (optional
live
effects processing being done) back to the sound card, to
the mixer,
through the walls into the studio room, into the headphones
of the
receiver playing the instrument... is greater than 22ms,
then the
person playing experiences a delay in the time he plays to
the time he
hears himself in the song. If that happens, you are not in
a good
situation. =)
So, if your latency is 22ms, think of how that corresponds to
sound
travelling in space: you only need to be separated by about
7.5m for that
kind of delay to kick in.
Delay between people isn't really the problem, it's delay in
hearing
yourself that's the killer. Although 22ms is the normally
quoted limit for
noticing the latency, it actually depends on frequency. Even
regardless of
frequency, i typically find that anything less than 64ms is
ok, less than
128ms is just about bearable and anything more is a serious
problem for
recording a tight-sounding performance.
Latency between recording musicians has a strange effect of
gradually
slowing the tempo down. Ie, if both musicians are playing with
headphone
monitors or something, and there is a small latency in the
system.
If you are playing together, but then you feel a 20ms latency
between you
and the other musician, you tend to perceive yourself as
playing slightly
too fast, and then adjust by slowing a fraction, the same thing
happens in
the other direction, so you're both constantly slowing by a
fraction to
maintain perception of synchronisation, and the tempo gradually
slows.
It's almost an unconscious psychological response, quite hard
to control in
the studio.
Interesting. This isn't a phenomena that I've experienced to be
honest, generally people's tendency to speed up has dominated
most sessions that are without click.
Also, 20ms round-trip latency? That's unusually small.
