I have a non-musical use for Ardour, hopefully anyway.
Simply put,
I would like to take an AM radio broadcast, plug into line-in, DELAY the broadcast by about 6-8 seconds, and have the delayed feed played through the speakers.
There are a couple TAP plugins that seem to be able to handle the delay part, but I wonder how I would get this to actually work.
It seems to me that if I can mute the line-in feed (from the master-out), apply the plugins while ‘recording’ in ardour, and connect the delayed track audio to master out; I should have a delayed feed correct?
To reiterate, I’m not looking for delay&feedback effects, or the Haas effect, I’m looking to take an AM radio broadcast, delay it completely by 6-8 seconds to synchronize it with a television broadcast.
Anyone have an idea how to set this up? Is there a more practical way of creating such a delay that I’m not aware of?
I believe in the SWH plugins you could use the “Artificial Latency” one to set the audio back the amount that you want, and then use software monitoring to have it outputting the delayed sound. I’m not sure if I’m understanding you completely correct, but whether you are recording it or not it would still have the delay.
By the way…Sorry, I’m not at a computer with ardour right now, so I can’t check to see if it will allow you to set 6-8 seconds. I can look into it later, though.
Yes, I think you are understanding me correct, it’s a little difficult to explain (as its an unusual task for a DAW application )
That is a bonus that I don’t need to be recording, I was worrying about disc space.
The point of this is to synchronize the radio broadcast of a hockey game with the television broadcast, which thru satellite and broadcast delay, will be many seconds behind.
A question, how would I use software monitoring to have it output the delayed sound? Software monitoring is enabled by default, no? I don’t think I fully understand its use and purpose.
You’re right, it is enabled by default (at least on mine it was). Software monitoring means the sound gets fully processed through the computer and plugins BEFORE you hear it back through the speakers. Hardware monitoring means you instantaneously hear the input AS it is going into the computer for recording. Both have their uses.
You would set up the track as though you are going to record it, add the plugin to the track’s box, send the output to your hardware’s sound output, and you should be hearing the source with all plugin processing.
The trick to making it accurate (if necessary) will be to make a timing loop to check your latency. Take a sound, output it through the hardware, connect the output to the input, and re-record it back in to see how latent it is. Then you can subtract this amount from the desired 6 second delay (or whatever it is).
OR you can always just dink with the latency setting until it’s correct. That would work, too.
That is excellent!
I didn’t know, or maybe took for granted that Ardour did that with software monitoring, that is amazing.
I’ve just tried the artificial latency plugin, and I’m unsure of the results…
It only works in the pre-fader for the track, the source is just me talking into the microphone. But the thing is, it only applies while I record, and I think its having the wrong effect.
When I hit record, it takes 6 seconds for the playhead to start moving, but it records everything I had said just after hitting record.
When I play back the track, the playhead is 6 seconds behind the actual audible noise. There is a delay/latency between the recorded audio and the playhead, but there is no delay/latency between the microphone input and the master output.
The track timing IS off by 6 seconds, but I have to playback the recorded track to have it.
I have hardware and software monitoring enabled, which is the default setting. With only software monitoring, it’s still not working ‘live’, or when not recording (i.e. me saying something in the mic, and then hearing it 6 seconds later).
Software monitoring is what would allow me to hear the processed sound ‘live’ right? How can I make the processing occur this way?
I hope some of that made sense!
Thanks a bunch for your advice, this forum has some very knowledgeable people around. Hopefully I will get this soon
OK, so I was trying to figure out how to prevent the microphone from playing thru the speakers instantaneously thru ALSA.
Then I realized it was just coming thru once from the gnome-mixer, and again thru jack. I thought this way I won’t hear the initial feed, and can delay it, and somehow route that delay to master-out. So I disabled the microphone in gnomes mixer, and then fired up jack-rack.
After fiddling around with a few, I found that a plugin called delayorama seems to work right away, I can achieve the latency between the mic-in and the master-out.
It’s not all won and over yet though. I can only get 5 seconds of latency, and despite tuning the plugin as much as visibly possible, there is a second reverberation that comes around after another 5 seconds, and I’m restricted to 2 or more ‘taps’. Each ‘tap’ is the delayed sound coming in again, on the set delay interval (which is 5 in this case, the maximum delay time possible).
I’ve turned down the gain comletely on the second tap, but I can still faintly
hear it, I imagine this will have a slightly noticeable effect when performing.
Is there anyway to ‘bend’ this plugin to my will in this case? Perhaps to increase the maximum delay and eliminate the second tap?
I’m terribly close to nailing it
OK, I am at home now and had a chance to try this myself. I couldn’t get the artificial latency plugin to work, but the “Simple Delay Line” works great.
Make sure you have Software Monitoring on. Also in the Options Editor, make sure to check the box for “Run plugins while recording”
Made a stereo track and put the Simple Delay Line plugin into the pre-fade (it doesn’t matter pre/post), set the wet/dry mix to 1, and the delay to whatever you want.
In the alsa mixer (or whatever mixer you have), you may need to disable playback of the line-in, but make sure the capture source is still line-in. This could differ depending on your sound card/mixer utility.
After all this, it worked fine for me without having to record a thing; all in real-time. If your testing w/a mic in speakers, you’ll actually hear several echoes, but that’s just the mic re-delaying what’s coming through the speakers. The line-in won’t do that.
Oh yeah, if you need to add more than 5 seconds, just add a second instance of the plugin with the same settings as above. For example, if you wanted 8 seconds, do the first delay plugin with 5 seconds, and then a second instance with 3 seconds for a total of 8.
