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Subject:im having Midi Latency issues
Posted by: BeatsBySelf
Date:1/1/2004 8:33:16 PM

i have a p4 512ram laptop i have a roland usb keyboard so i hook my keyboard strait into the usb 2 ports on my laptop without a midi man i have a midi man and i used it b4 and i still have latency problems ive got all the latest drivers acid 4.of and im still having allot of trouble when using my keyboard to control vst synths when i press on my keyboard it takes about a little less than sec to respond

and on some of my other piano vst's when i click on a piano key its still late so i know it isnt a prob with my keyboard

can someone pls thanks

Subject:RE: im having Midi Latency issues
Reply by: Iacobus
Date:1/2/2004 2:43:30 PM

You will always have latency of some sort; it's usually up to the audio/midi interface to determine the latency you'll get. It should be very small in your case, however. What's your audio interface?

Iacobus
-------
RodelWorks - Original Music for the Unafraid
mD's ACIDplanet Page

Subject:RE: im having Midi Latency issues
Reply by: BeatsBySelf
Date:1/3/2004 9:06:57 AM

i use a midi keyboard that plugs strait into my usb 2 ports and i have a conexant soundcard thats the default soundcard for my laptop i already turned down the buffer on acid does that answer your qeustion about the audi interface ?

thanks for the reply man

Subject:RE: im having Midi Latency issues
Reply by: salad
Date:1/3/2004 10:35:17 AM

Hi,
sorry to hear about the latency issues. Sounds like you've tried everything regarding "settings".
I would suspect the Conexant Audio device. I usually associate that name with the audio portion of 56K Modems : )
Have you consisdered a USB or FireWire audio interface? These have great ASIO drivers and will provide VERY low latency. M-Audio, for example recently released new drivers for their USB Quattro, and they are amazing! I would imagine they did the same for their DUO and others.

Get a used one off ebay.

What's the CPU speed on that laptop?
You can try......a BIOS flash/update, a mobo driver update, and a Conexant driver update.

Good Luck!

Subject:RE: im having Midi Latency issues
Reply by: pwppch
Date:1/3/2004 5:25:12 PM

To achieve the most desireable latencies, you will have to use an audio interface that support ASIO.

If you are not using an ASIO capable device, you should still be able to get usable latencies. Select the Wave Classic Drivers mode in ACID and then select the audio device that represents your hardware.

Try using 100 ms (0.100 seconds) and go up/down depending on how things sound. (Crackling noises, go up. No crackling, go down.)

There will be a happy medium between normal playback and real-time MIDI softsynth triggering. You will have to find where this point is with your specific hardware.

Peter

Subject:RE: im having Midi Latency issues
Reply by: BeatsBySelf
Date:1/3/2004 7:39:35 PM

can someone please tell me what an asio interface is and give me some examples/names of the products is asio like an external sound card or something

thanks alot for the help all of u

Subject:RE: im having Midi Latency issues
Reply by: pwppch
Date:1/3/2004 9:49:18 PM

ASIO is a driver model developed by Stienberg. A sound card can have ASIO drivers written for it.

There are so many cards that have ASIO drivers that you are best served to just start checking out audio hardware manufacuters.

There is a list of _some_ manufactures available in our knowlege base. Do a search for "ASIO" in the knowlege base and there will be a link to this list.

Peter


Subject:RE: im having Midi Latency issues
Reply by: BeatsBySelf
Date:1/4/2004 3:40:47 AM

so should this asio driven soundcard have midi ports or standard audio plugs cause right now i just have my midi controler pluged strait into my cpu via usb 1 whats wrong with my setup is it my soundcard or is it the way the midi signals are tranfered through my computer also does it matter if the soundcard is usb firewire are usb 2 what would u perfer

thanks alot peter

Subject:RE: im having Midi Latency issues
Reply by: pwppch
Date:1/4/2004 5:44:22 PM

ASIO has nothing to do with MIDI. ASIO Is a means for an application to input and output streaming audio data.

Your issue - assuming that all of your MIDI i/o is working properely - resolves around how long it takes for the MIDI note msg you play on your keyboard to "trigger" an internal softsynth. This delay is caused by the amount of audio that ACID "queues" up or buffers. The larger the buffer, the longer the delay from the time you press key and hear the note output.

As long as the hardware and its drivers are capable of working with buffers of 100 ms or lower, there should be no problems. However, NO two drivers ar built the same.

I don't give out recommendations as to audio or MIDI hardware in specific - too much risk if it doesn't work for somebody.

I highly recommend you read the entire ACID users guide. Much of this is discussed in there.

Peter

Subject:RE: im having Midi Latency issues
Reply by: Waskel
Date:1/6/2004 8:15:35 AM

If BeatsBySelf talks and moves and drives and thinks the same way he types it's no wonder he's bothered by latency nothing could possibly go fast enough

jk! :-}



Subject:RE: im having Midi Latency issues
Reply by: Iacobus
Date:1/6/2004 11:41:13 AM

Like Peter said, you should be OK with a latency of about 100 ms or less. Even USB 1.1 ports can handle MIDI just fine. (MIDI doesn't require a lot of bandwidth like digital audio does.) FireWire and USB 2.0 are very comparable, so it's just a matter of preference.

A soundcard that uses ASIO can have both MIDI and analog/digital audio connections. My Audiophile 2496, for example, has standard MIDI I/O and S/PDIF I/O as well as RCA analog I/O. I'm able to select the latency via my Audiophile's software control panel. It's an internal PCI soundcard, however. The external USB Quattro has standard MIDI and 1/4" I/O's and also has adjustable latency.

You may also want to look into your setup a bit. For example, the USB controller that your USB ports are on may be sharing an IRQ with another device in your system, which could cause problems. Even if Windows reports everything is fine with IRQ sharing, the MIDI controller might not like it.

Getting the USB controller an IRQ of its own may be quite a task, as operating systems like Windows XP can be draconian as to what device gets what IRQ. You usually can reassign IRQ's by reserving them for certain slots via your system's BIOS. (That doesn't help with laptop computers, though.)

HTH,
Iacobus
-------
RodelWorks - Original Music for the Unafraid
mD's ACIDplanet Page

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