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Posted by: Koseydon Mar 7 2014, 06:57 PM

hi,

it has been so long since i write here (and it was with another account i beleive). i hope everybody is ok and doing great things.

now about my question:

recently i saw a video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er9VhozNHNk

his timing just blow my mind. i mean everytime i try to record and loop something there is a little disposition at start. i know it may be because of my latency but rather that how can i reach that level? is there any exercise to do that?

thank you

Posted by: Cosmin Lupu Mar 7 2014, 07:45 PM

Hey mate - what sort of gear do you have? It may be that you need to adjust the settings to get rid of latency - otherwise, there's no exercise that can get rid of latency. It's a technical issue that is solved by tweaking settings not by exercising

Posted by: Koseydon Mar 7 2014, 07:55 PM

hi Cosmin,

well i have a Line 6 POD UX1 sound card, and i use cubase 5 my guitar is japan fender standard stratocaster. i know that im not so good at timing. but also i don't think it is all about my gear :/

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Mar 8 2014, 01:47 AM

Hi mate, you shouldn't have latency issues with that gear. Are you sure that you are using pod's drivers?
Maybe you could try using asio4all driver. If you have latency, I can say that it's impossible to play tight. It is very confusing.

Posted by: Cosmin Lupu Mar 8 2014, 07:40 AM

I'm with Gabi here - if you have latency, you simply can't be able to play in good timing - to have good timing in the case of latency you would have to play faster, so that you may be ahead of the timing but actually with it in respect to the latency, which is pretty much impossible... I'm sure there's a setting there, which will take care of latency Try Gabi's suggestions and see what happens.

Posted by: Caelumamittendum Mar 8 2014, 10:52 AM

How much latency is acceptable? I think I'm getting around 20 ms, depending on settings. I'm not home right now, so cannot check it though.

Posted by: verciazghra Mar 8 2014, 12:24 PM

Even real tube-amps have latency. When recording put your buffersize down(~128-196samplesize gives me about 9.3ms input latency(13.3 output latency).

Posted by: dcz702 Mar 8 2014, 12:44 PM

i enjoyed this video especially his disscusion on double tracking. the video didnt have anything to do with your latency issue, maybe you were just trying to say how do you get your set up working like the guy in the video?
maybe take a look at your softwares minumum requirments and make sure you at the very least meet them, look at the cpu and ram, you can find minimum requirments somewhere in the info for your software. its better not to have the minimum, but give your system some more headroom. then make sure you are using the latest and correct drivers for your audio interface, i also keep my system clean and free of old files i dont need anymore, or at least keep them on a external hard drive, i heard somewhere when you hard drive gets full things can start going haywire on your system, but dont really know for sure, keep it freed up as much as possible anyway, acttually all my audio goes to a external drive with my programs all installed on my main drive. when you start recording your gonna want a good size external. hope you work it out Lag sucks and makes it almost impossible to record.

Posted by: Koseydon Mar 8 2014, 01:12 PM

thank you for all your replies

but i still don't think it is because of my system. Here is an example of my recording:

http://hizliresim.com/KqkXyW

If it is because of my gear's latency it should start slightly back from drums' track right? but instead, as you can see, it starts before from drums.

Posted by: jstcrsn Mar 8 2014, 03:03 PM

first tell us , do you have latency issues. With recording monitor on, how long does it take for you to hear the note , when you strike it on your guitar, about as long as you would an amp(as Verc brought up ) or can you get a second note off before you hear the first one

If you don't have latency , may I suggest cutting and sliding the track over and play along until you have your timing, and then record

If it's latency, this will be in the control panel for UX1

Posted by: thefireball Mar 8 2014, 04:23 PM

True stuff here. I have the UX2 and use the ASIO4All driver and get low latency. I was using Pod Farm as a plugin inside my DAW but found there was too much latency. I decided to monitor with the standalone program for tighter monitoring, then muted the track monitoring, set to record dry in. You can do this by using Send 3 output from Pod Farm. If you have a beefy computer then set the buffer settings of Pod Farm to extra small. Misha, in the video, is actually hearing his amp as he explained. I find myself scooting the tracks a few milliseconds over in tighter sections.

Posted by: verciazghra Mar 8 2014, 06:19 PM

That makes a lot of sense since Asio4all will give you about 40ms at best, which is a bit steep without post-recording correction.

Posted by: Todd Simpson Mar 8 2014, 07:32 PM

Are you asking how to play better or how to record better? Or both Your question seems to start asking about latency then switches to asking about what to play to get better? The good news is we are here to help on both!! Bit more detail maybe?

Your screen grab shows that you started playing a bit early it seems? Or are you saying that you played on time and it recorded early? Sorry, a bit confounded

Posted by: Koseydon Mar 8 2014, 08:19 PM

i am very, very sorry if i wasn't clear enough i think problem is with my playing. i recorded myself with other (better) systems. result was same. i know that i don't have to play like robot about timing but i guess when it comes to recording i think i should :/ as you can see at video, i also tring to record 2 or 4 channel of same track and it is very difficult to me since my timing is not so perfect

thanks to all of you for your help and support

Posted by: jstcrsn Mar 8 2014, 09:16 PM

cut and move your tracks till they are in time, and then practice with them until you have developed your own timing

Posted by: Guido Bungenstock Mar 8 2014, 09:37 PM

Well, if you have problems with playing in time in general , then the first thing you should do is: practice with a metronome:

So here I have some tips that work great to improve your timing:
1. Set BPM to slow speed like 60-80 BPM and start with simple 8th & 18th groove pattern. For example simple single note funk patterns( with DRY CLEAN sound!!!) work great for this. If you're playing with a simple clean sound you have a lot more dynamics. Try the same pattern with DISTORTED SOUND. Then of course you have less dynamics but you have to be careful about unwanted open strings noise.
2. Play the same things but this time with the click metronome just on 2 and 4!!!
3. Play the same things but this time with the click metronome just on 1!!! So you have a silence on 2,3, and 4. This can be a REAL challenge to keep the timing until the next bar.
4. Play the same things but this time with the click metronome just on 1 for TWO BARS!!! So you have a silence on 2,3, and 4. (on the 1st bar ) AND 1, 2, 3 and 4 on the 2nd bar too This can be a ULTIMATE challenge to keep the timing during the two bars.
5. Then you can experiment with off-Beat settings of course, for example 3+(on the 1st bar) and 2+ on the 2nd bar.
6. Try to move a whole pattern in between the bar, for move it from 1 to 1+, or 16th note before etc. etc.
8. And then at the end try your patterns with a complete drum groove or backing track.

There are tons of possibilities here to improve your timing.

But I have to mention one important point here, these are only timing exercises!! But when it comes to REAL GROOVY music, then the Micro timing is the most difficult thing to master, specially if you play with REAL musicians. So it makes a lot difference if you're pushing a beat or if you're playing more laid back.

So try this this micro timing thing with a metronome or backing track too. ;-)

Posted by: Cosmin Lupu Mar 9 2014, 07:32 AM

Guido has offered an extensive suggestion on how to get your timing into shape and I strongly think you should follow it, but in the mean time, why not share a recording with us so we can also hear what's going on? Anything you wish will most likely tell us if it's your playing that needs adjusting

Posted by: Koseydon Mar 9 2014, 12:48 PM

thank you very much for awesome reply this remind me one of the books that i have. It is called "Ross Bolton - Funk Guitar - The Essential Guide" maybe i should take a look at it?



well i'm writing a blog about my exercises. I only wrote 1 article so far when it becomes more and more i will share. i also record myself both audio and video for that blog. I will happy to share it

also Cosmin, i was looking a post about this that u shared:

http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/guitar_forum/index.php?showtopic=41914

i think i can also help about this "micro timing" what you think?

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Mar 9 2014, 09:01 PM

Great to know that we finally got but you meant in your first post. There are many exercises that help with timing. One thing that helped me at first has been to along with songs. Once you feel comfortable with songs, you can use backing tracks to practice just with the drums and bass in a real music situation.

this is an example:



this is also a good exercise to practice timing:

http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/solo-guitar/timing-exercise/

Posted by: Cosmin Lupu Mar 10 2014, 08:34 AM

Mate, the Ross Bolton book is GOLDEN! I know it ALL by heart That many times I have played it Listen, if you learn all the exercises in that book and rehearse them with full focus over the backing tracks in my thread - the one you posted above - I guarantee you will become a rhythm machine

Posted by: Darius Wave Mar 10 2014, 10:12 AM

I had problems with unregular recorded track timming stretch with GX via USB...using it's asio driver as well. If You say You had that problem on other systems too, then Guido's advice is on spot. But...I know that usb interfaces can cause some issues as well. For example I couldn't record good double tracking of rhythm guitars because the interface gave me completely different time match than with playback. I know when I play not "in time" but those differences were far beyond my possible mistakes so I started to dig. Seems like my PC / insterface where having problems while playing drum tracks or metronome while recording.

Posted by: Guido Bungenstock Mar 10 2014, 09:37 PM

I'm glad i could help you a bit. ;-)
One of the best rhythm guitar players is session player Paul Jackson jr. I learnt so much from him, his rhythm playing is just legendary. Go check him out!
Another interesting thing I heard Larry Carlton saying in an interview about timing & groove was: he NEVER practiced with a metronome in his whole life!!!! He just played to records or musicians. I couldn't believe it! And he's one of the best groove players!
So as you see there's no golden rule at a all to improve the timing. :-)

Posted by: Cosmin Lupu Mar 11 2014, 08:26 AM

As Guido stated, there is not a path set in stone. There are several things that you can try and this thread is slowly gathering more and more of them. I say it was a very inspired thing to start this thread Keep us in the loop regarding your progress, mate