Am trying to set up a USB midi keyboard and mic to record practice against a BiB backing track.

Laptop being used shows keyboard latency is almost 1/2 second.

Mic has its own power supply and gets the signal into BiB thru USB without any problem.

I'm picturing headphones being needed to hear the backing track and deal with the time delay. BiB has an icon to create clicks so keyboard latency can be adjusted to line up with the background but I'm not really sure how everything should be set up.

Here is an article in today's Harmony Central newsletter that explains all about latency:

http://www.harmonycentral.com/articles/all-about-computers-and-audio-latency

I hope this helps.

If you can use an Asio Driver in optipns Audio set up. I am nottechnically minded but I do know that MME drivers (default win audio drivers) produce horrible latency figures. Have a look in Options/ Audio driver set up

-*HERE*- is a 30 minute YouTube video with an in depth explanation of what latency is, ways to determine how much latency is acceptable and how equipment drivers determines latency more than hardware.

The video is informative and entertaining.

The latency setting you mentioned only comes into play if you are using the default Windows GS wavetable synth or a soundcard synth. If you are using a VSTi or DXI synth such as Coyote or SampleTank, or if you are running your keyboard audio to Biab then the latency button will not help you. You are hearing audio latency, not midi latency.

If audio latency is bothering you then you'll either have to try different types of audio drivers (MME or ASIO) to see if one type works better than the other. If you use an ASIO driver you will need to go to the ASIO driver settings to adjust buffer memory size or number of samples to come to an acceptable compromise between the latency and audio messing up.

You mentioned possibly using headphones. How are you using speakers to hear the sound while also using a microphone? Aren't you experiencing feedback?

If the USB microphone has a headphone jack, that will be the jack to use. You may have to use the Windows playback mixer to balance the levels between Biab, your keyboard and the microphone.

In short, the basic problem here is it sounds like you are trying to use the laptop's built in soundcard. You are also using a USB mic.

That's 2 strikes against you to start with.

Strike 3 is that the laptop sound card can not effectively process all that using it's normal MME drivers and most will NOT run ASIO properly. You can use work arounds, and try the wrappers (ASIO4ALL) and sometimes that will work ok..... sometimes not.

In addition, you have 2 soundcards..... the laptop and the USB mic, which appears to the computer as a sound card. There is no sync between the 2 clocks. More issues waiting to happen.

The solution: Purchase a USB based musical interface that has the number of inputs and outputs you need, with audio preamps on the inputs, phantom power, and runs native ASIO right out of the box with no codecs or wrappers required. ($100 to $250 for the 2 channel models most home studios use)

A real condenser mic plugged into the interface, midi can go either into the interface if it has jacks for that or straight to the computer via USB.... the new interface will handle ALL input and output chores. Output to studio speakers or headphones and life will be good. The latency should easily be under 10ms, generally even less.....

Suggested brands of interfaces: Roland, Presonus, M-Audio, or my favorite, Focusrite. The difference will be like day and night.

My focusrite can run projects with many synths in them and keep it all running smoothly.

Research the brand and model you plan to buy before you lay the cash down. Some are better than others. It will be the heart of your studio so don't skimp on it.