How To Solve Logic Pro Latency Issues

Have you ever recorded something in Logic Pro, only to find out afterwards that you were way more out of time than you thought?

However, sometimes it's not your fault - sometimes latency is to blame.

What is latency?

I'm glad you asked. Latency is essentially another word for delay. It means that there is a delay in your system.

So from the time you hit record in Logic, it then goes through your interface, through your speakers, and into your ears. You then record the instrument or the vocals, and it goes back through the interface, back through the converters, and back into Logic.

Now, we want that to be as quick as possible, but sometimes it takes a few milliseconds (1ms to 50+ms depending on your audio interface and settings) for that round trip to occur.

Let me demonstrate. I've purposely added in some delay here to show you a before and after. I’ll show you techniques to remove delay from your system in a minute.

Here's a guitar recording with no latency:

Notice the large gap between bar 3 starting and the audio waveform. Even though when this was recorded it sounded perfectly in time.

Now, Here's a guitar recording that has been affected by latency:

Notice the playhead lines up perfectly on bar 3 with the audio waveform. Indicating the recording is perfectly in time.

Both recordings were played the same way and IN TIME! However, one recording is miles out of time.

There is clearly latency at play here. So, now you should understand what latency is and how to spot it.

Essentially, your recording is more out of time than how you were actually playing it.

So what can you do about it? For this, we need to go to the audio settings in Logic.

Fix 1: Logic Pro In/Out Audio Buffer

This here is really important:

This is your audio input/output buffer. This is the easiest way to improve your latency.

The lower this number is, the better for recording.

The higher this number is the better your project will run when you have lots of plug-ins and you're deeper in your project.

This buffer basically decides whether it gives you more power at the recording stage or more power when you've got lots of intensive plug-ins running.

The best settings will vary depending on your Mac, but for me, 64 seems to run best when I'm recording, and 512 seems to work best when I need a bit more power. (I'm on a 2020 M1 Mini - 16GB.)

What you should notice is that when I change this, the resulting latency will change depending on the number of samples you choose. You can actually see how much delay is in your system.

The in/out buffer is the first place to check if you've got some latency problems when recording. If you've got it set on the highest setting, try bringing it down to the lowest setting. See if that helps.

The next thing you can do is a super quick fix.

Fix 2: Low Latency Monitoring Mode.

All you have to do here is just turn on Low Latency Monitoring Mode.

To do this, you just go up here to Record and then press Low Latency Monitoring Mode.

What this does is disable any plug-ins that you have in your recording chain that are quite CPU intensive. You'll see theM turn orange and they get disabled when you arm your recording. That's super simple, right?

Fix 3: Remove Latency Heavy Plugins while Recording

Okay, so the third way is to be proactive - to stop any latency issues creeping in whilst you're recording. If you normally put a load of plug-ins on your channel strip when you're recording then you should try and limit these.

Adding loads of plug-ins at this stage will increase the latency. You can even see how much latency each plug-in adds by hovering over the plug-in - it will tell you in seconds and samples how much latency the plugin is creating.

It may not look like too much, but as soon as you add autotune or a few other intensive plug-ins, that will soon add up and create unnecessary latency in your recording.

Here are a couple of workarounds for this:

1. Use the stock Logic Pro plug-ins first. If you're working with a vocalist and they really want reverb on their voice on the way in, you can always use a basic plug-in like SilverVerb. Later on, you can swap it out for a better third-party reverb plug-in.
   

2. Avoid using sends at this stage. Sends seem to lengthen the signal path and add a fair amount of latency.
   

3. Use direct monitoring. Rather than monitoring through Logic, you’re actually going to be monitoring the source through your audio interface at the source. You can bypass the DAW for monitoring therefore reducing latency.
   

Most interfaces have a mixer pot (dial), and you can choose between listening to the playback from your DAW or the input on the way in.

If you're listening to it on the way in, you don’t have to wait for it to do that whole round trip. This will help you or your vocalist, play in time a lot more easily and accurately.

So there are several techniques for reducing latency in Logic Pro so you can record in time better, without delay.

If you want to master learning Logic Pro, then my courses will do that for you. You’ll find free ones and some more advanced ones for sale.

Or alternatively, you can message me for some 1 to 1 tuition on Zoom and I'll get you up to speed as a pro producer in no time!

I hope this solves all your latency issues. Until next time, Adam.