All About Latency, Pt. 4

Our deep dive series on latency issues and solutions in the recording studio continues! Today we’re going over a solution called direct monitoring.

What is direct monitoring in the recording studio?

Direct monitoring means that you are hearing the raw audio coming directly off the mic in your ears, during recording.

Direct monitoring is a bypass that feeds the raw audio coming off the mic directly into your headphones, before it reaches your computer. Because the audio doesn’t have to be piped into your computer and then back out again, direct monitoring is instant feedback on what the mic is picking up.

How to enable direct monitoring in your audio interface and DAW

Most audio interfaces have a direct monitoring feature nowadays, and it’s usually tied to a physical button on your interface.

First, turn off software monitoring on the record track in your DAW. We don’t want to hear what the software is doing in this case-we’re going to bypass it completely with direct monitoring.

Next, flip on the direct monitoring switch on your audio interface. You should now hear only the raw output of the mic in your ears, with no more latency echo.

Disadvantages of using direct monitoring

There are some cons in using direct monitoring to solve latency issues in your studio.

Because we’re monitoring the audio coming directly off the mic, before it hits your computer, you will only hear the raw mic or instrument audio in your ears while recording. You won’t be able to hear any computer based effects that you’ve added to the track, because we’re bypassing the computer completely in your monitoring loop.

So, if you like tracking vocals while also hearing your voice with reverb added in your headphones (very common), that’s not going to work using direct monitoring.

You could work around this by deciding to bake that reverb directly into the track, by recording your vocals through a reverb pedal or something. Not recommended: this will limit your mixing flexibility later on in the process. This might be a perfectly adequate workaround for a demo you’re planning to re-record, but not for something you might want to release later using the same recorded tracks.