Recordings are out of sync

When you record into Ableton Live, if audio doesn’t line up with other tracks or you notice a delay at the beginning of the recording, it may be due to Monitor settings. The timing of audio recordings depends on which Monitor setting is selected.

This guide outlines how to choose settings in Live to keep audio recording in sync. For addressing latency in other situations, visit the guide How Latency Works. For a full explanation of monitoring in Live, visit the Ableton Reference Manual section Monitoring. 

Suggested settings and best practices
Track Monitor settings
Keep Monitoring Latency in Recording (Live 12)
Delay Compensation
Reduced Latency When Monitoring
Common mistakes to avoid

Suggested settings

The following chart provides a suggested starting point for optimal settings to reduce latency. For details and specific cases, refer to the sections that follow. 

Best practices for in-sync recordings

Carefully select Monitor setting before recording.

• Monitor directly through your audio interface and set Monitor in Live to Off when possible, for the lowest possible latency.
• If direct monitoring is not possible or desirable, use Keep Latency to toggle latency compensation when needed.

Minimize processing while recording.

• Use only zero-latency effects during recording.
• Create a Template Set for recording without any latency-inducing devices.
• Add any effects with latency above zero after recording is complete.

Check audio interface latency using the Driver Error Compensation lesson.

1. If recording through an audio interface, open the Help menu in Live and select Built-In Lessons.
2. Then click on Show all built-in lessons and open the Driver Error Compensation lesson in the Hardware Setup category.
3. Use Driver Error Compensation only if your interface reports incorrect latency. Otherwise, leave this value at 0.00, and do not try to use it to offset recordings. Learn more in the Driver Error Compensation FAQ.

Track Monitor settings

You can choose from three Monitor settings: In, Auto, and Off, in the Mixer section of each track. This determines whether incoming audio is heard through the track while it's record-enabled. The way Live handles the timing of audio while it is being recorded depends on which Monitor setting is selected.

• In means incoming audio always passes through the track into the monitored signal.
• Auto allows incoming audio to pass through when the track is record-enabled.
• Off means incoming audio never passes through the track into the monitored signal.

Understanding how these settings work and when to use each one, as explained below, can help you minimize out-of-sync audio in Live. This chart describes the Monitor settings’ default behavior. As of Live 12, these can also be bypassed with the Keep Monitoring Latency feature, explained below.

Monitor Setting	Off	Auto or In
Recorded audio adjusted for overall latency	The timing of recorded audio is not adjusted for delay or lag introduced by plug-ins and devices in your Set. Recorded audio timing reflects the timing of the performance as it was played, relative to other tracks in the Set.	Live delays the start of recording by the value of the overall measured latency in the Set, e.g. the total processing time added by your plug-ins and devices. Recorded audio timing reflects the sound as it was heard, e.g. the signal after it passed through Live’s device chain, relative to other tracks in the Set.
Recommended use	To hear incoming audio directly through your audio interface, and bypass Live When monitoring “through the air,” such as when recording a singer who prefers to listen to the room When recording acoustic instruments like a guitar through a microphone.	To hear incoming signal through Live’s device chain When recording audio played using a software synth or audio effect inside Live In live performance with “Reduced Latency while Monitoring” enabled Note: You may need to mute the monitoring signal of your audio interface to avoid hearing a double signal.
Example	For a sound source recorded “through the air,” such as when recording an acoustic instrument or a vocalist, you may want the timing of the original sound to be recorded, since the latency-compensated signal will sound “late” relative to the original sound. In this case, it’s recommended to set Monitor to Off, or turn off the Keep Latency switch, explained below	When playing a synth plug-in using a MIDI keyboard, the plug-in’s processing may cause a delay between the moment you press a key and when you hear a sound. To account for this latency and keep the sounded notes in time, you might press the key slightly ahead of the beat, so that the sound you hear while monitoring through Live is in sync with your Set. With Monitor set to Auto or In, the latency-compensated timing of the sounded notes, rather than the timing of when you pressed the key, is what’s recorded.

Keep Latency (Live 12)

As of Live 12, the Keep Latency setting allows you to modify how Monitor Auto and In behave. With Monitor set to In or Auto, Keep Monitoring Latency in Recording is enabled by default.

To view the Keep Latency status, open the Mixer View Menu using the small triangle at the bottom-right corner of Live’s window, and enable Track Options. Learn more about the Keep Latency toggle in the Ableton Reference Manual.

Setting	Keep Latency On	Keep Latency Off
Behavior	Auto and In Monitor settings use the default behavior: the timing of audio is adjusted to account for roundtrip latency. This behavior presumes you are monitoring incoming audio through Live, and playing in time, so the timing of what you hear is what should be recorded.	Auto and In Monitor settings do not adjust recorded audio for latency. The printed audio’s timing relative to the rest of the Set is the same as how it was received by Live during recording, e.g. how it was played.
Uses	When monitoring through Live with electronic instruments, such as when: recording VST instruments played with a MIDI keyboard	When you don't want the monitoring latency printed to your recording, but still need to monitor through Live, such as when: Giving a vocalist the experience of singing with reverb, while recording the dry audio Viewing the color information available in the Track Volume meter for monitored tracks Recording hardware synths using MIDI clock sync

Delay Compensation

Delay Compensation keeps tracks in sync by accounting for latency introduced by devices, plug-ins, or routing within a Live Set. It’s turned on by default and saved with each Set.

• When Delay Compensation is enabled, Live measures the latency on each track and delays the others as needed so that all audio plays back in time. This ensures consistent timing—even if one track has a device chain that takes longer to process.
• If Delay Compensation is turned off, each track plays as soon as its own processing is complete. This can result in tracks sounding out of sync, especially during editing or playback of recorded material.

For best results, keep Delay Compensation enabled when recording, arranging, or exporting audio, as this reflects how your Set will sound in its final form.

In live performance situations, you may want to disable Delay Compensation to reduce response time when triggering clips or playing instruments. In these cases, enabling Reduced Latency When Monitoring can also help.

Note: Do not confuse Delay Compensation with Driver Error Compensation, which corrects errors in reported latency between your audio interface and Live.

Reduced Latency When Monitoring

Reduced Latency When Monitoring is an additional setting in Live’s Options menu, available for Sets in which Delay Compensation is active. This setting, saved with the Set, bypasses the effects of Delay Compensation for monitored tracks only. However, Reduced Latency When Monitoring is designed for playing in a performance setting with live musicians, not as a fix for latency issues during recording. Learn more about How to reduce latency while monitoring.

With Reduced Latency When Monitoring enabled:

• Monitored tracks bypass Delay Compensation and play as soon as their own processing is complete.
• All other tracks are adjusted to play back in sync.

This option gives you faster response while playing, without losing sync in the rest of the arrangement. It can be useful if you want to play a single instrument without any delay, while hearing the rest of the arrangement play in sync. Or, for example, for a singer in a performance who is routed to a sound system via Live, this setting can be used to make sure their singing is in sync with what they (and the audience) are hearing, with as little delay as possible.

Note: If you record in Live with Reduced Latency When Monitoring active:

• Your recordings may be out of sync with other tracks after recording.
• Any latency from devices on the monitored signal path will still affect timing, meaning it can be harder to find the perfect alignment on the grid after recording.

Common mistakes to avoid

Using Track Delay to fix recording sync issues

If your project's overall latency changes, this “fix” will no longer work or be accurate. To show or hide Track Delay, use the Mixer Config menu in the lower right corner of Live, and enable Track Options.

Instead, follow the steps above to ensure your recordings are captured with the correct latency offsets.

To fix misaligned audio after recording:

• Align recordings on the grid manually 
• Adjust warp markers

Using Driver Error Compensation to correct out-of-sync recording

Since most audio interfaces correctly report hardware latency, there is usually no driver error to compensate, which is the main use for this setting in Live’s Settings → Audio tab. 

Driver Error Compensation is a global setting, which aside from external hardware, does not affect relative timings of tracks within a Set. While changing this setting affects the displayed Overall latency value in Settings → Audio, Driver Error Compensation is not designed as a way to correct the latency within a specific Set, or of recorded audio.  

• Instead, learn about whether you need to measure DEC and how to do this in this guide to Driver Error Compensation.

If you do need to fix audio interface driver error specifically, visit Live → Help → Built-In Lessons → Setting Up Audio I/O for instructions.

Routing MIDI to an external instrument without using External Instrument device

Do not use a track’s MIDI out to send MIDI to control an external hardware device, and add a separate track to record audio in from your hardware. This routing is not properly latency compensated and will likely produce timing issues.

• For correct latency compensation, use the External Instrument device. Without this, proper latency compensation cannot be expected. 

In certain cases, a digital external hardware device could add extra latency, beyond the standard input/output latency. In this case, you can adjust the Hardware Latency setting of the External Instrument device. However, note that External Instrument automatically compensates for latency within Live, and in most cases the compensation is accurate without manual adjustment.