A workaround this Bluetooth issue? (Not Bandhelper's fault)

[Graeme Hague]

All my backing tracks are recordings created by myself and uploaded to sync with Bandhelper. All good, works brilliant. However, recently I've bought an ElectroVoice EV 50M PA system that allows me to play back BH and those backing tracks via Bluetooth, letting me "save" two channels on the 50M mixer.

My problem is the slight Bluetooth lag means I often miss the first "click" of my four-count count-in. One solution would be to add a second or two of silence in front of every recording, but that's over 70 tracks and a huge task.

I'm wondering if there's any setting in BH which, although not designed to solve this, might inadvertently fix the problem? Something that delays the playback long enough to allow the Bluetooth to kick in?

Thanks for any ideas.

[arlo]

I would suggest using the Line Ins on the mixer, but it looks like those are the same as channels 5-6 on that product. (Usually the line ins are separate from the mic/instrument inputs.) Running backing tracks through Bluetooth would scare me, but maybe it's reliable enough to not be an issue.

Does Settings > Audio & MIDI > Delay Recording 1 have the desired effect?

[Graeme Hague]

Thanks Arlo, sorry ... I didn't get an alert about your answer. I'll try that setting. Thanks!

[avdb]

Hi there,
Running backingtracks via Bluetooth indeed remains a scary thought to me too and I also feel much more comfortable with copper for my main Audio.

However, I also came recently across a situation where streaming over BT was necessary, and there I observed an additional artifact that relates to BT.

That streaming over BT results in delayed Audio is a well-known and well-documented fact, which for all its 'normal' intends and purposes may not be relevant.
As all my recordings already have a 10 Msec silence in front of the audio (which I added for different reasons), I did not observe the problem as Graeme described.
However, if the audio that is now streamed via BT also has automation tracks (or even more problematic; midi file attached to the recording, this now results that automation and MIDI file are suddenly out of sync as the audio is delayed.
IN other words, patch-changes, light scenes etc. are now being send out too early, completely messing up your carefully crafted automations.

Again, this is not a BH issue and is strictly BT related. But I thought users should be aware of this artifact before they they decide to stream their audio via Bluetooth.

@Arlo: I suspect (but certainly am not sure) that the delay induced by Bluetooth is not deterministic, so adding a feature that allows to delay all automation and midi files may not be the workaround?

[arlo]

@Arlo: I suspect (but certainly am not sure) that the delay induced by Bluetooth is not deterministic, so adding a feature that allows to delay all automation and midi files may not be the workaround?

I don't quite understand your question. But if you are trying to sync a recording with a tempo, you can use Settings > Audio & MIDI > Delay Tempo; if you are trying to sync with an SMF file, you can use Settings > Audio & MIDI > Delay SMF Data; and if you are trying to sync with an automation track, you can make the start time of the recording earlier within the automation track. If you are asking whether the Bluetooth delay will be consistent across different hardware, I don't know.