+
+<p>
+ In the days of analog tape recording, the routing of monitor signals was
+ performed with relays and other analog audio switching devices. Digital
+ recorders have the same feature, but may impart some
+ <a
+ href="/synchronization/latency-and-latency-compensation/"><dfn>latency</dfn></a>
+ (delay) between the time you make a noise and the time that you hear it
+ come back from the recorder.
+</p>
+<p>
+ The latency of <em>any</em> conversion from analog to digital and back to
+ analog is about 1.5–2 ms. Some musicians claim that even the
+ basic <abbr title="Analog to Digital to Analog">A/D/A</abbr> conversion
+ time is objectionable. However even acoustic instruments such as the piano
+ can have approximately 3 ms of latency, due to the time the sound
+ takes to travel from the instrument to the musician's ears. Latency below
+ 5 ms should be suitable for a professional recording setup. Because
+ 2 ms are already used in the A/D/A process, you must use extremely low
+ <dfn>buffer sizes</dfn> in your workstation <abbr title="Input/Output">I/O</abbr>
+ setup to keep the overall latency below 5ms. Not all
+ <a href="/setting-up-your-system/the-right-computer-system-for-digital-audio/">computer audio systems</a>
+ are able to work reliably at such low buffer sizes.
+</p>
+<p>
+ For this reason it is sometimes best to route the monitor signal
+ through an external mixing console while recording, an approach taken by
+ most if not all professional recording studios. Many computer I/O devices
+ have a hardware mixer built in which can route the monitor signal "around"
+ the computer, avoiding the systemlatency.<br />
+ In either case, the monitoring hardware may be digital or analog. And in
+ the digital case you will still have the A-D-A conversion latency of
+ 1–2 ms.
+</p>
+
+{% children %}
+