Yeti USB mic latency and stuttering on Video recording

Craigster wrote on 5/15/2013, 12:49 AM

Alright, I'm throwing up my hands a bit here, after 3+ hours of failure over 3 days of trying...

My BLUE Yeti USB mic works fine on my Mac and my audio PC for Skype, for recording to Samplitude Pro X, and also for recording Audio only in Video Pro X.

However, as soon as I try to record audio from the Yeti simultaneously with Video from my Logitech C9100 webcam, I get a number of problems. Regardless of my settings (among VPX5 and Windows 7 64-bit), I always get major audio stuttering (I can get 100 dropouts in 5-10 seconds of recording), and also get a significant latency, where the audio is far behind the recorded video. They do not auto-sync. Then, depending on settings, I may get 2 audio copies -- a near immediate response and the delayed high latency response. Interesting, the latency is far worse on the MME setting. When I use the WDM option, the stuttering is worse, and sometimes VPX5 tells me (wrongly!) that the mic won't record to 48 Hz, or that the data is corrupt, or it simply won't play back.

Initially, I was trying this in conjunction with a USB hub and my pro audio interface (RME Fireface 800). Then I turned off the RME interface, so the computer is only seeing the Yeti. And I plugged in directly to a USB port on the PC, avoiding the Hub. Neither change made any difference in either the latency or stutter problems.

Anyone using Yeti succesfully for VIDEO-AUDIO recording? Why would audio only work fine and adding video mess everything up?

Craig Allen

Comments

jeffjn wrote on 5/17/2013, 3:16 AM

Hi, I'm not going to be much help here because I don't have the same gear, but how is the webcam connected? I's assume it is USB and so might be sharing the same port as the mic - I know some of my USB ports are on the same internal "hub".

johnebaker wrote on 5/17/2013, 2:13 PM

I think the problem is trying to use 2 USB devices, possibly on the same USB controller on your computer.

Each USB controller has an effective throughput of 35 MB/s or 280 Mbit/s (USB2) which is shared by all devices on the same controller.

I presume you are using the Logitech as a HD camera, this will require a much greater proprtion of the available throughput and would appear to be taking priority over the audio throughput hence the dropping of some the audio (stutter) and may be contributing to the delays you are also seeing.

Try plugging the mic into the different USB sockets on your PC to see if you get any improvement.

Going through a USB hub with both devices connected to it will also suffer from lack of throughput.

John