Subject:midi latency

Posted by: briansansone

Date:10/11/2009 8:42:42 PM

I seem to have quite a bit of latency between my M audio usb keyboard and the vst instruments in acid. I couldn't find any way to adjust it.
Thanks
Brian

Subject:RE: midi latency

Reply by: jackn2mpu

Date:10/12/2009 6:40:35 AM

Please fill out your system specs and make it public.
That being said, go to the control panel for your soundcard. There should be an adjustment for latency there. Also make sure you have your soundcard selected inside Acid. Further to reduce latency make sure you are running the latest ASIO drivers for whatever soundcard you are using (and please don't tell us you're using a Soundblaster or other onboard sound device).
Jack

Subject:RE: midi latency

Reply by: briansansone

Date:10/12/2009 12:28:29 PM

I did up date my sys info. Although I couldn't find how to make that info public-I'm new to this forum. I am using a brand new Toshiba lap top, with on board everything.
In my device manager all I could find is that I have a Realtek hi-def audio, with no latency adjustments.

Under my audio device preferences I have:
Microsoft sound mapper
direct sound surround mapper
windows classic wave driver
ReWire Device Driver

I have always been confused on what these options are???

Can I upgrade to an ASIO driver? I found one called ASIO 4 All.

Or am I going to need an pro audio/midi interface ?

Thanks for the input. I have always just used acid for audio, and now I want to get
my midi equipment working with acid.
Thanks

Subject:RE: midi latency

Reply by: jackn2mpu

Date:10/12/2009 3:19:51 PM

I see you system info. It's public so no need to worry there. Apparently there's a way to hide it but I don't know how.

Okay - you have a Toshiba laptop with a Realtek soundcard chip. I too have a Toshiba laptop, an older Satellite 1955 with 2.53 GHz P4 and 1 gig ram with an onboard Realtek soundcard. The first thing I did when I got into recording on th computer was to get a serious sound I/O device. I put an Echo Audio Indigo IO in the PCMCIA slot. Worked well until I needed to use external synths and microphones. The Realtek is good for nothing but Windows sounds.

I then went to an Edirol UA1000 USB 2.0 sound I/O box. Multiple channels of analog I/O, digital I/O, and a single MIDI port. Works really well with ASIO drivers provided by Edirol. Unfortunately they don't make this interface anymore. There are plenty of reasonably inexpensive sound I/O devices (I hate the term soundcard - it's so inaccurate at times) out there, both USB and Firewire. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise - USB 2.0 is plenty powerful enough for multiple channels of analog audio. Edirol, MOTU, and many others are excellent for working with computer recording. Just stay away from Behringer as the quality is spotty at best.

Some audio interfaces also have MIDI ports. Unlike having multiple audio interfaces (which can cause a problem) having multiple MIDI interfaces is not a worry.

And there's no need to switch between audio interfaces for when you're not doing recording but just playing games. Just use the same interface. One other thing - so you don't get possible glitches when doing music work, turn off all Windows sounds. You don't need them.

Jack

Subject:RE: midi latency

Reply by: Bremen Cole

Date:10/12/2009 5:15:23 PM

While I do agree that a good sound card is important, you can get up and running without one. I often use my laptop as a sketch pad, and it only hast the Realtech soundcard. As a matter of fact it is a two year old Toshiba....

Google ASIO4ALL, download and install. Then start Acid.... go back to devices and now you will have an ASIO option, choose it and the ASIO4ALL drivers..... It defaults to 512 buffer, so leave it alone, it will work much better than the others.... BTW.... ASIO4ALL is free....

If you do plan to use your laptop as your promary music making tool, then do plan to upgrade to a real audio soundcard.....

Subject:RE: midi latency

Reply by: briansansone

Date:10/12/2009 7:20:09 PM

thanks for the input!
Brian