Direct Monitoring (Zero Latency) in REAPER

[Music] hi I'm Kenny Choi welcome to another one of my tutorials in this video I'm gonna show you how to use direct monitoring to get zero latency while recording in Reaper so a project in front of me here and I want to record some vocals and I've already created a vocal track right here and normally we put the track in to record go to our input and set it to where a vocal mic is plugged into on a computer audio interface make sure we have level on the track by having our singer sing I'm gonna make sure that you love me and we do but if we notice the vocal tract is dry so I want to get some effects to this track to make it sound more inspiring for the singer so go to track effects I'm gonna right click and go down here to effects chains because I already saved one to use for vocals vocal delay and reverb which is basically a real delay plugin with 180 milliseconds panned to the left and 210 milliseconds pain to the right creating a slap back delay then we have a reverb afterwards with a pretty big room and very little dampening so see what the vocal sounds like now sure that you love me that sounds a lot better and more inspiring for our singer but there could be one problem with this if there's too much wait and see in our system our sing is gonna hear a delay in their headphones in other words the time it takes for her vocal to go through the mic into our audio interface into the computer and Reaper and back out to our monitors or the headphones that's known as wait and see and we can check it if we go up here we can see right now it's 4.9 milliseconds which typically is pretty short so it shouldn't be that hard to work with we could adjust this wait and see in the audio device settings now I'm using a Mac so my audio device is right here and my latency is set right over here with the request block size with it set to 128 we're getting about five milliseconds of delay or latency but if you're running a system that can't keep up with this low of a setting may be hearing glitches in the audio because your computer is a bit older or your drivers for your interface or a bit slower in those situations we're probably going to set the block size a bit higher like maybe 512 which is going to give us about 13 milliseconds of latency or even higher like 1024 which will give us about 25 milliseconds of latency which is starting to get a bit too long I'll go even higher to 2048 and now a latency is almost 50 milliseconds which is way too long for recording our vocals our sin is going to really notice that delay now again I'm on a Mac if using a PC it's gonna look more like this but the audio system set to a s io our drivers set based on our interface and down over here in the ASIO configuration we can adjust our latency what we can do it with the request block size over here like we did it with the Mack but either way if our system requires that I wait and see be that high it's gonna be difficult to record our vocals but luckily there's a lot of interfaces that have a feature called direct monitoring let's take a look at a few here we have a personas interface and it handles direct monitoring with this mixer knob normally we'd have this knob turned completely towards playback but if we want to hear our inputs directly we can move it over towards the inputs and hear a bit of both which will give us direct monitoring with zero latency now for this audience interface it has an input and a D aw not again we're normally gonna have it fully by D aw we could bring it over for the input and mix our inputs with a computer or Reaper and the same thing for the same audio interface USB is a computer so we'd have it over here and move it over to direct to bring in these inputs again using zero latency or direct monitoring on the way in now if we're using this focus right into face it doesn't have an op instead and as a direct monitor button so if we push it we're gonna hear our inputs along with Reaper still creating direct monitoring with zero latency or if we use a mixer like this we could just bring up the fader for a mic so you could directly monitor that input or if it's an analog console we could do the same thing just bring up the fader for that channel and we could directly monitor our mic with line inputs again with zero latency now if we're gonna use direct monitoring through our interface we need to turn off input monitoring on our track otherwise we're gonna hear a vocal in both places through this track in Reaper and also directly from our interface so if we right-click over here we could turn off monitor input but we can just click this icon once to switch it to monitor input tape water-style or again off completely so now we're not going to hear our vocal through this track even though it's still gonna see input on the meter like this but now we could turn on direct monitoring so we can then hear the vocal so let's try recording some vocals I'll make sure that you let me I'll make sure they call your mind but if you notice there's a problem our vocal is completely dry because we're not hearing it through this channel we're just hearing it without direct monitoring so we're not going to hear that delay and reverb we set up before play back this recording I make sure I make sure they call your mind then we do so I'm play back it sounds right because it's going through our Channel but during recording it's going to be dry because we turned off the monitoring right here so it's not as inspiring for the singer to sing without the effects but luckily there's a workaround what's undo that recording then once duplicate this track right click trucks and then right here we have a duplicate of the vocal tract let's rename it vocal effects only and we're gonna use this track just for the effects while she's singing on the input so go to the effects and choose the first effect in the chain the dry fader and pull it all the way down so this truck is just gonna be wet effects no dry sound at all we'll get our dry sound from the direct monitoring so it's changed the monitoring on this track right here to be on monitor input turned on so now we are going to hear the vocal through this track but not this one but we're just gonna hear the effects in fact let's turn off direct monitoring just for now to hear it and now she sings we're just gonna hear the effects again we're not hearing the sound through this track because monitoring is turned off we're just hearing it through this one right here but we're just hearing 100% wet effects we could turn direct monitoring back on and now it's have her sing you love me notice it sounds exactly the same we're here in the dry vocal to the direct monitoring on our interface well hearing the effects through this tract but if we go into a chord now it's gonna record both tracks at the same time and we don't need that so it's changed the recording mode on this track to be record disabled input monitoring only so now if we go into record it's just going to record on this track even though we're going to monitor with direct monitoring mode the effects through this track so it's going to sound the same when I record as it will during playback so let's check it out oh you might notice it sounds exactly the same with the dry vocal coming through a direct monitoring on the interface and the effects sound coming from this track but it didn't record over here it just recorded over here but I'm playback it's gonna play the dry sound more with the effects or from this track and it should sound exactly the same I'll make sure that you love me I'll make sure state-o your mind and it does it sounds exactly the same on input as it does on playback both no latency because we used direct monitoring on our interface this is also going to work if we punch in the vocal punch in the second line notice it sounds the same this phrase is going to play back while this phrase is going to record I'll make sure that you love me I'll make sure me call your mind [Music] both phrases sent exactly the same with the same proportion of dry sound to effect sound so it's a perfect solution for recording vocals guitars or any live instrument when we want to hear our effects during the recording but still have zero latency so that's pretty much it that's how to use direct monitoring to get zero latency while recording in Reaper I hope you learned something hope you can use it and I'll see you next time Thanks you [Music] ah you

Channel: REAPER Mania

Views: 140,592

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Id: 5Y2xFmGkakw

Length: 13min 23sec (803 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 09 2020