User Manual

Apogee ONE | User’s Guide for Windows
When recording with most computer-based digital audio applications, the delay between the input and
output of the recording system often disturbs the timing of the musicians performing. This delay,
known as latency, means that the musician hears the notes played a few milliseconds after having
actually played them. As anyone who has spoken on a phone call with echo knows, relatively short
delays can confuse the timing of any conversation, spoken
or musical.
Figure   A.
To illustrate the effect of latency, Figure A depicts the typical signal path of a vocal overdub session.
A vocalist sings into a microphone, which is routed to an analog to digital converter, then to the audio
software application for recording. In the software application, the vocalist’s live signal is mixed with
the playback of previously recorded tracks, routed to a digital to analog converter, and finally to the
vocalist’s headphones. A slight delay accumulates at each conversion stage, while a much greater
amount of delay occurs through the software application, resulting in the vocalist hearing his
performance in headphones delayed by
several milliseconds.
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