At the moment, the audio latency is too high in Chrome OS and Windows, so we've decided to turn it off. We are hard at work trying to reduce latency on all platforms, so we hope we'll be able to allow monitoring for all of our users in the future.
Monitoring is currently supported in Mac+Chrome and on iOS with the Soundtrap app.
Read more about latency here.
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Many audio interfaces, such as the Scarlett Solo and M-Audio FastTrack feature direct monitoring through the audio interface. Direct monitoring does not include the effects (reverb, echo, distortion for guitars, etc.), but does enable the performer to hear a close approximation to what is being sent to Soundtrap.
Is this really an OS issue? I'm on Win10, and my $99 PreSonus USB audio interface has very low latency inside Pro Tools and PreSonus Studio One. Yet in Chrome, the browser, the latency is very audible (in soundtrap I have to listen back to the recorded track because monitoring is disabled, but in other web recording/streaming pages I see similarly high latency).
So it seems to be to be an issue with Chrome, not Windows. I can't speak for Chrome OS, but a company named superpowered seems to have a solution for Chrome OS (Android), though I don't think it works from inside the browser...
As for Mr. Manchester's suggestion, it's great if you are playing guitar or keyboard and can listen over speakers to the tracks while listening over one ear of headphones for the instrument you are playing. If you are singing, you must go headphones all the way, and two sets of headphones on one head is awkward - I've done it several times.
(update) I tried a workaround in which I set my default output device to be that same PreSonus box. That way I might listen to my zero latency input direct from that box while simultaneously hearing the recorded tracks on SoundTrap through that same pair of headphones. Nice idea, poor results. SoundTrap freezes up when I hit the play button, saying the system is stressed, reducing audio quality, then freezing tracks (it's a two track session, one for input, the other for a click track - shoudn't be very stressful). It refuses to play back if the PreSonus box is the default audio output device on my Win10 machine, and SoundTrap has no way to set the output device within the studio, so I must use default output. (end update)
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