> I would listen back to my recordings, trying to overdub new parts, feeling like I was playing pretty tight and in time. But when I listened back my playing would sound totally off. I was always miles behind the beat, sounding incredibly sloppy and rhythmless. For months I thought this was a deficiency in my playing, until eventually I discovered some latency setting, read about what latency was and realised what was going on. I tried my best to fix my latency problems, failed, put up with it for ages, and then eventually used my student loan to buy an audio interface and a shure SM57 microphone. These are two of the best buys I’ve ever made. I could suddenly record things that were pretty much in time, and also everything I recorded sounded way way better.
When overdubbing you don't actually need to minimize latency: as long as your latency is constant, you can adjust for it. For example, if your end-to-end latency is 200ms you can tell your music program to adjust, shifting everything you record 200ms earlier.
My guess is their low-end usb mic did not accurately report its latency, and so the Ableton wasn't able to automatically adjust. It's still a possible to adjust manually, though.
My guess is inadequate driver support for the USB mic. I'm running a focusrite 2i2 3rd gen, and although I have gripes with the drivers, the performance is miles beyond the default windows drivers and is fairly solid.
Right now it seems like that's one of the biggest arguments against USB mics, if not the biggest. Standalone USB audio interfaces tend to have better drivers. AFAIK this is more relevant on Windows, just due to the complete shitshow that is Windows audio drivers, and not really relevant on Macs.
Due to the various problems with USB microphones, I generally recommend something like a Scarlett Solo + SM57 or SM58 as an entry point if you're buying your own gear. This has a price tag around US$250, once you include a XLR cable. Just like there's diminishing returns when you buy expensive interfaces/preamps/mics, there's also a sharp dropoff in quality and experience once you go below this baseline.
Even though you can find cheaper microphones and cheaper interfaces, I haven't found any that I can reliably recommend.
I'd have to agree. An SM57 or SM58 is also a piece of gear that you'll be able to use for decades, even if you've moved up to high end thousand dollar mics.
I've actually never encountered the issue with USB mics not accurately reporting latency because I don't think I've ever tried to record with one. Back in the 90s, in high school, my drummer friend and I went in together on a couple SM57s and a Radio Shack 4-channel mixer so we could record our jam sessions into a boombox tape deck (later a PortaStudio). I still have one of those SM57s and just pull that out whenever I've needed a mic.
They'd written "feeling like I was playing pretty tight and in time", so it doesn't sound like they had a problem with monitoring latency. Probably not using any monitoring?
When overdubbing you don't actually need to minimize latency: as long as your latency is constant, you can adjust for it. For example, if your end-to-end latency is 200ms you can tell your music program to adjust, shifting everything you record 200ms earlier.