Latency

[Rob]

Scanning starts when the signal crosses the thresh, which is at the very start of the transient.

[mprinz]

Sure,

sorry, so the polarity in my image is not correct since the first peak falls to negative.

[mprinz]

I again checked the latency... with your setup

Yap, with the eDrumIn4 USB MIDI I got 7.5-8.0 ms (with Ploque Bidule for the MIDI remapping and three
EZDrummer2 instances active, sampling the sound + Cubase 10.5 just for the recording, not VST instruments).

With the Millenium MPS-850 module I got 10.0-12.0 ms.
Ok. No fairy tale! That's why I replaced the MPS module with the eDrumIn4 for snares and hi-hats.

[legobeats]

Just got my eDRUMin 10 and did some latency tests against my Roland TD-17. My Setup:
- Mac Mini 2018, OS 10.14
- Cubase 11 with Superior Drummer 3
- Motu M4
- Roland PDX-12 Snare Pad
- scan time 2ms on both units
- EDIT: 44.1 kHz sample rate

I placed microphones on the snare pad and on one speaker, as close as possible, to measure the total round trip latency. Trigger-Interfaces (TD-17 and eDRUMin) connected to the Mac via USB, new Cubase project with only SD3, no other PlugIns. Then I hit the snare pad, recorded both microphone channels on a separate Laptop and compared the position of the first transients on both tracks. The results were nearly the same for both trigger interfaces, which is a big compliment for the eDRUMin as the Rolands are (one of) the fastest on the market. The results are:

32 samples audio buffer
- Roland TD-17: 6ms
- eDRUMin 10: 6.5ms

64 samples audio buffer
- Roland TD-17: 7ms
- eDRUMin 10: 7.5ms

128 samples audio buffer
- Roland TD-17: 10ms
- eDRUMin 10: 10.5ms

So latency should not be a problem with the eDRUMin - at least not bigger than with any other trigger interface. The crucial thing is the computer setup and especially the audio interface. I'm happy with my M4, playing with 6-7ms is real fun! Maybe I'll do another test with the onboard sounds of the TD-17 to compare with the Computer/VTSi Setup. But I will never go back to the Roland sounds as they are nowhere near Superior Drummer.

[Rob]

Thanks for sharing.

[dsteinschneider]

@legobeats - thanks for providing that information. I've been meaning to do a test like that but I'll run with your's. Over on vdrums some very knowledgeable participants are skeptical that my 8 year Lenovo X230 SSD/16GB RAM / Behringer UMC202HD 48k/64 buffers / Superior Drummer / eDRUMin setup doesn't have noticeable latency or glitches.

[legobeats]

I think your laptop should be fine, you could look for an interface with real low latency. That's why I got the M4, with the Motu drivers it's said to be one of the fastest USB interfaces.

[MisterE]

@legobeats
I also have the MOTU M4. I'm running OSX Big Sur on one of my Macs and Mojave on another. I have downloaded the driver that is supposed to support a 32 sample rate. I haven't gotten it to work, have you?

[legobeats]

The minimum sample rate depends on the host. In SD3 standalone the smallest available buffer size is 64, in Cubase I can get down to 32, in StudioOne even to 16. But buffer size is only half of the story, out of curiosity I repeated my test in StudioOne and got sifnificant higher round trip latencies. About 3-4ms higher than with the same buffer sizes in Cubase. Looks like StudioOne is doing some hidden buffering - so much for "DAW abc has much better low latency performance than DAW xyz".

When running SD3 as stand alone you could try this: In macOS go to Audio-Midi-Setup and set the sample rate of the M4 to 88.2kHz (or try even higher rates), this should lower the overall latency. Actually I'm planning to do some tests with SD stand alone and different buffers/rates. I'll keep you informed

[MisterE]

The minimum sample rate depends on the host. In SD3 standalone the smallest available buffer size is 64, in Cubase I can get down to 32, in StudioOne even to 16. But buffer size is only half of the story, out of curiosity I repeated my test in StudioOne and got sifnificant higher round trip latencies. About 3-4ms higher than with the same buffer sizes in Cubase. Looks like StudioOne is doing some hidden buffering - so much for "DAW abc has much better low latency performance than DAW xyz".

When running SD3 as stand alone you could try this: In macOS go to Audio-Midi-Setup and set the sample rate of the M4 to 88.2kHz (or try even higher rates), this should lower the overall latency. Actually I'm planning to do some tests with SD stand alone and different buffers/rates. I'll keep you informed

Thanks, I'll give that a try tomorrow!