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+<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&ndash;2&nbsp;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&nbsp;ms of latency, due to the time the sound
+  takes to travel from the instrument to the musician's ears. Latency below 
+  5&nbsp;ms should be suitable for a professional recording setup. Because
+  2&nbsp;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&ndash;2&nbsp;ms.
+</p>
+
+{% children %}
+