Audacity drum problem

[Brandin17]

Ok me and a friend have been recording songs for a while but when ever we record the drums there always off time, at the moment we are only using one mic hanging in the middle could this be why there is the lag? Also, what is the best way of recording drums? We have a lexicon and we use audacity for software.

Thanks,
Brandin

[johncub]

sounds like a latency problem to me. Could be something else though, I'm no expert in that.

How are you recording? Live, or drums first then other things? Or some mix of the two?

[Brandin17]

Well usally guitar first so should we do the drums first?

[johncub]

I guess I assumed everyone did drums first. Well if it is latency you can just test by recording something short and then trying to record something over it. Is the second instrument out of time with the first? if so then it is latency. Otherwise, dunno.

[DJRecklessRick]

alwayssss record drums first and make sure you do as many takes as possible to get perfect time. use a click track if needed. I used to use audacity and have those same latency problems and lag that would annoy the hell outta me. Once I got my lexicon though i started to use cubase le because audacity was having major compatibilty problems with the lexicon.

[dangercityskyline]

Audacity has TERRIBLE latency issues sometimes.

Here's how to fix them. i'm at school right now so I don't have Audacity in front of me. these directions won't be exact, but they'll be close enough.
1. Make a click track at a rate you can record yourself tapping a drumstick to, for example.
2. Then record yourself tapping that drumstick. Make sure you stay exactly on beat.
3. Play it back. The click and the stick hits should be out of sync at this point.
4. Figure out the amount of time between when the click beat plays and you played. The best way to do this is to select the space between the two.
5. Look down at the bottom of the screen, there should be something you can check to tell you how much time is selected. Write this number down somewhere, you'll need it later.
6. Go to the Preferences box and look around in the tabs on the left. Eventually you'll find one where the page has a box to set latency options.
7. Type in that number you wrote down earlier and hit OK.

This should fix your latency problems. Audacity now knows it has a latency issue and self-corrects itself.

[sherone]

No Idea! are you using the latest version of Audacity Software?

[dangercityskyline]

yup....it should work!
what problems are you having?

[Vanan]

Another trick I used when doing rough mixes with guitars and drums on Audacity is to create a click track. Add a couple of bars of just closed high hat hits at the very beginning of your drum track. All I do then is zoom in and use the time shift tool to align the waveforms. It's not 100% but comes pretty close. I usually re-record guitars once the drum track is done anyways.