When tracking it’s often the case that a vocalist wants a little bit of sparkle added to their voice, this usually means some reverb or delay.

However, the problem is that effects often add additional latency to the monitor mix in their headphones. Depending on the audio interface, the computer and the plugins you use, that latency can vary from comb filtering annoyance to unworkable delay times.

Some brands such as RME, Metric Halo and Universal Audio offer solutions to this problem, so if you are lucky to own one of these units then it’s worth investigating.

However, there is a way to give your talent the effects in their monitor mix and it works with any audio interface.

The technique for doing this is very simple, it ensures no latency in the cans for the vocal, or whatever instrument you are recording, and it means you can add some effects to the monitor mix.

How To Set Up

It’s simple to set up in any DAW, it just takes a little bit of routing.

First create your record channel as you would in your DAW. Make sure it has monitoring turned on, this means the talent can hear themselves via the DAW. Depending on buffer settings this may include a small delay - this is the thing you want to get rid of, so turn down the fader on the channel.

Now any audio interface worth its salt is going to have a low latency monitoring solution in the form of an additional software mixer. Set up the direct input from the microphone to feed the headphones so your talent can hear themselves. At this point the mix will be dry. If they can hear themselves plus a delay or comb filtering then you still have the fader on the DAW turned up and you need to turn it down.

Next create an effects send in your DAW, either using an FX channel or a new stereo buss. Add the effects to this channel, or to several if you wish to add more than one effect. In the example shown we’ve added both reverb and delay.

On the effects sends, change the settings from post fader to pre-fader. This means that even with the fader down on the channel audio will still send to the effects. If there is no audio being sent to the effects channels you’ve created from the microphone channel then there are a number of possible reasons.

• The send is not in pre-fader mode.

  • Solution: Set to pre-send

• You’ve not routed that send to the right channel.

  • Solution: Route to correct buss or effects channel.

• The input monitoring is not enabled on the microphone channel.

  • Turn on input monitoring on the channel.

• The microphone channel is muted.

  • Unmute the channel then turn the fader down.

Time Is Your Friend

When you turn up the faders on the effects return channels the talent should be able to hear the effects. Now, this is where time is your friend. The fact is the effects still have latency on them, however because they are time based effects like reverb and delay, all you’ve created is some pre-delay and the talent isn’t going to notice that. Try it, it works like a charm.

Of course this isn’t going to work with anything like an EQ or dynamics processor, but on the whole the talent isn’t usually as bothered about that being in their headphones.