Why am I experiencing latency?

Since the beginning of time... well, since the beginning of recording audio and music on computers, latency has been one of the most irritating things in the world.

Latency is simply the time it takes from the moment you want a sound to be made, until the sound actually can be heard from your speakers or headphones.

For example, the time it takes from pressing down a key on the synthesizer to when the note is actually heard. Or the time it takes between saying "beeep" into the microphone and you hearing yourself saying "beeep" through your headphones.

This time lag is usually very short. So short, that it's measured in milliseconds. But it's long enough so that it sometimes can be heard and felt. Luckily, thanks to the fast advances in computers the last decades, latency is not even close to as irritating as it was just 10 years ago, in most cases.

The latency varies depending on which type of device and operating system you use. On a Mac running OS X, latency is so low that it's more or less non-existent. Over the last year we have been able to significantly reduce the latency for Windows machines and Chromebooks as well. It's not as low as on Macs yet, however.

But don't worry! We are working very hard, in close contact with Microsoft and Google, in order to bring down the latency for both Windows machines and Chromebooks, to the same level as we've achieved on Mac computers.