Shure SLX 1 Latency

[blindside777]

Ok so heres my problem. I have a Shure SLX 1 currently in our rack at the church. I want to use it for my acoustic guitar and it works great, except the problem that there is about a 1/2 second of latency between the time I play and the time it goes through the speakers. Is there a way to fix that. Could it be the result of having the rack on the other side of the wall behind the stage? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Brad Weber]

Originally Posted by blindside777

Ok so heres my problem. I have a Shure SLX 1 currently in our rack at the church. I want to use it for my acoustic guitar and it works great, except the problem that there is about a 1/2 second of latency between the time I play and the time it goes through the speakers. Is there a way to fix that. Could it be the result of having the rack on the other side of the wall behind the stage? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

What is the entire signal path from your guitar to the speaker? 500ms would be a huge amount of latency so if you're really experiencing that then I'm guessing there is something else involved somewhere in the signal path.

[blindside777]

it goes from guitar, to the bodypack, to the mounted receiver in the rack. From there its XLR into the iDR 48 mix rack, to speakers. 500ms may be a bit exaggerated, all i know is there is latency between my guitar and speakers. I'm a noob haha.

[cmchamp]

How large is your worship space, how deep is the stage?
There might be some speaker processing in there between the iDR48 and the amp rack.
Depending on the size of the space, there may be delay (latency) built in between the back line and the mains so that the kick drum and bass stage sound aligns with the house subs.

[blindside777]

the stage itself is about 13-14 ft deep. directly behind the wall to the stage is where the rack is. the sanctuary itself fits about 300 people.

[Tim Padrick]

I'd say that a delay effect unit has been inserted somewhere in the signal chain (if the channels don't have delay themselves).

[Arlin]

Wireless delay itself should be negligible to non-existent for just about any wireless microphone (some digital wireless will have a few milliseconds of delay, but I think the SLX is analog).
If you are experiencing an obvious delay, it is probably due to a delay setting in the mixer or speaker system processor.
The delay might also be due to the distance between you and the speakers, but given your room dimensions, I would say that should be minimal. (Roughly 1 ms per foot of distance as a rough estimate).

[[Director] drew ryan]

How are you monitoring the guitar? Do you hear the direct signal from the loudspeakers or is it possible that you are hearing the slap back off the back wall?

[Brad Weber]

I would guess that some delay in the signal path in the iDR is a definite possibility. So is an echo. Another possibility is that since you are apparently monitoring via the house speakers then how far those are from you could also be a factor, if you're more than 25' or 30' from the speakers then the sound you get from them might be perceived as separate from the direct sound.

I've seen many systems that don't seem to consider than any latency in a digital mixer and/or digital processor adds to the time of flight for the acoustic path and may need to be considered when looking at stage spill from the house speakers. A couple of milliseconds of latency added here and there may mean having to move the speakers or arrays several feet closer to the performers to avoid any spill being perceived as a discrete echo.