User Manual

AUDIO BASICS
78
ReWire and Latency
When you run Record as a ReWire slave, it is the other program, the ReWire master, that is responsible for actually
rendering the audio and playing it back via the audio card. It means that any latency is present in the ReWire master.
! When Record runs as a ReWire slave, what audio hardware you have, what audio driver you use, and the audio
settings you have made in the Preferences dialog are of no importance at all! All audio hardware settings are
then instead made in the ReWire host application.
! Note, however, that you may have to adjust the “External Sync Offset” in Preferences if Record is synced via
MIDI from the host application (see “Synchronization considerations”).
For information on ReWire, see “ReWire”.
Reducing latency
There are a few general methods for making sure latency is as low as possible:
D Make sure you are using the latest version of the drivers for your hardware audio interface.
D Adjust the Sample Rate and Buffer Size parameters as described in “Audio settings”.
D Remove unnecessary background tasks on your computer.
This might be any background utility you have installed as well as networking, background internet activities etc.
D Optimize your songs.
You might run into situations where you have to raise the Output Latency setting to be able to play back a very de-
manding song on your computer. Another option would be to actually optimize the song. See “Optimizing Perfor-
mance” for details.
D Get a better audio interface.
This is only required if you find that you need to increase Output Latency because your audio card can’t really cope
with the songs you try to play.
D Get a faster computer.
This is only required if you find that you need to increase Output Latency because your computer can’t really cope
with the songs you try to play.
About processors
When you run Record, the clock speed of the processor is a major factor determining how many audio tracks and de-
vices you can use at the same time.
If you plan to buy a computer specifically for Record, you could play it safe and choose a computer with at least an In-
tel P4, or equivalent AMD processor, running at 2.0 GHz or faster. MultiCore processors will give better performance
and are highly recommended.
About RAM
Another important performance factor is the amount of installed RAM in the computer. Generally, one could say: the
more the better, especially if you’re running several applications simultaneously. To run Record, a minimum of 1 GB
RAM is required, but more is recommended for even better performance.