Internal microphone has a delay of minimum 40ms in recording software which makes recording low-latency music almost impossible

Hello,

I was doing tests with my new M1 and I noticed that the internal microphone has a delay of minimum 40ms in recording software which makes recording low-latency music almost impossible. In case it affects anything, I am an IT and audio professional and do troubleshooting regularly.

The way you can replicate this is to simply go into GarageBand or Ableton, use the built-in microphone as input and the built-in speakers as output. Then record the metronome with the built-in microphone. Upon playback, you will instantly notice the delay in the recording. There is no fix for this. I attached a screenshot to show this.

I did the same test using my Apollo Twin audio interface, Ableton, and and an XLR microphone, and the metronome was EXACTLY on time (screenshot 2). This test demonstrates that the problem is clearly with the built-in microphone as a device.

I have tried to increase the sample rate to 96khz, lower buffer size to lowest, enable low latency monitoring wherever available, reset SMC, and no luck. So my guess is that this is either a software (driver) or hardware bug. It would be really disappointing if it were hardware..

This makes recording music that is time-accurate impossible. There will always be a delay on the recorded track of minimum 40ms which is really a big deal in music recording.

I hope this can get fixed.

Thanks,

Jona