Overall latency

[acappello]

Hi,
I am new in this forum.
I have a Yamaha DTXtreme IIs drum in my small home recording studio. I think that I need a dedicated audio system with a lot of inputs and very low latency. Can you suggest a possible solution ?
Further, what is the overall latency when using a high performance audio system (as for example RME) ? I mean what is the time delay between the impact on the pad and the sound at the output of the audio system ? And the advantage with respect to the Yamaha brain midi output connected to the audio system midi in ?
Thank a lot in advance
Angelo
Bologna, Italy

[Rob]

Hi and welcome,

I have a Yamaha DTXtreme IIs drum in my small home recording studio. I think that I need a dedicated audio system with a lot of inputs and very low latency. Can you suggest a possible solution ?

What's your budget? If you want to get the lowest of the low in terms or latency, then get a PCI-e interface. I'd go firewire over USB if you're looking for a more portable solution. But you should also factor in your CPU and motherboard. What kind of system do you have? I recently upgraded from a Quad core Q6600 to a core i7 960 and the difference is amazing. With my Q6600 I'd have to freeze every track in my project and keep my sample buffer at 128 just to keep pops and clicks down to a minimal. With my new CPU I work at 64 samples and I don't need to freeze anything and there isn't a single pop or click.

Further, what is the overall latency when using a high performance audio system (as for example RME) ? I mean what is the time delay between the impact on the pad and the sound at the output of the audio system ? And the advantage with respect to the Yamaha brain midi output connected to the audio system midi in ?

DSP Trigger will not be faster--nor would it be much slower. DSP Trigger has to do just the same thing as your module. However its timing will be slightly delayed by an amount equal to the interfaces input latency, so having a good low latency interface helps.

If you're currently finding that the output from your sound card is too delayed, DSP Trigger can not help you. You need a low latency audio interface and a high performance machine if you want to get high performance drumming on a computer, regardless of whether you're using a module or software like DSP Trigger.

[Rob]

For the sake of curiosity, I did a quick little experiment to test and compare the overall latencies of DSP Trigger vs. my Roland HD-1.

I placed a mic right next to my monitor (to record the output from BFD2) and another on my snare pad. I simultaneously recorded the two and compared the transients to get a measurement of the total round trip latency.

AUDIO SETUP:
M-Audio Firewire 1814
Sample Rate: 48k
Buffers: 64
DSP Trigger scan time: 2ms

RESULTS:
DSP Trigger round trip latency: 12.9 ms
HD-1 Round trip latency: 12.2 ms

I imagine the difference would increase as you moved up to 128 or 256 buffers.

[acappello]

Thank you so much for this nice experiment. This confirms that it is not easy to go below 10ms in the overall latency, even with a high performance PC. Probably triggering waves without midi conversion would be faster. I remember this approach on some drums by frettedsynth
http://rekkerd.org/fretted-synth/
and also on some guitar synths by Roland.
Best Regards
Angelo

[acappello]

This is the link to the frettedsynth Complete drums
http://rekkerd.org/frettedsynth-release ... ete-drums/
You can download it from
http://rekkerd.org/fretted-synth/
You must download PDP Pack and unzip.
They declare zero latency. It seems optimistic but why not trying ?
Regards
Angelo

[Rob]

When they say 'zero' latency, they are lying to you. Do your own test and you'll see. It takes time for audio to go into a computer. It takes time for audio to come out of a computer. And it takes time to measure the velocity of a hit. There is no getting around it.

[miditraxstudio]

How you control latency depends how your sound cards are set up. I have 2 M-Audio PC cards capturing 16 channels of audio. By adjusting the buffer of the sound cards enables me to lessen/ eliminate latency. A lot of people think that having a faster CPU or more RAM will fix the problem. That is not the case. I have an old single core athlon PC that I personally built myself. I use this PC to record. My latency is 3.993 ms( milliseconds). This basically means there is no noticeable latency. When I record my drums, I am using DSP Trigger Free ( I am upgrading the full version after I post this note) I use Toontrack EZ Drummer and Addictive Drums. Both are excellent drum VST but they are buffer Hawgs. However, by adjusting my latency, I am able to plugin DSP Trigger Free to each channel, assign my notes, and record in live mode. So , having a fast PC means nothing if you do not know how to set up your ASIO settings on the sound card.

[Rob]

I agree. You're using a pair of delta 1010's? I'm looking to steer myself away from their products. I have a half dead UC33, a half dead Pro 88 keyboard, and the ADAT on my Firewire 1814 is toast.