Still Getting Latency with External Sound card!

M

max1805

New member
Hi folks, i'm new here so apologies if this has already been answered!

I'm using Cubase LE5 to record midi drums using my Roland TD-12. I was experiencing latency issues a while back so I decided to spend some cash and buy a good sound card. It's a Saffire 6 USB which was recommended to me. The guy in the shop told me that it would be more than capable of handling my midi signal and I would probably get 0ms latency.

So I've tweaked the buffer size etc in Cubase and have got it down to 32 samples which works fine.

However Cubase is still reporting 4ms input and output latency! I know 4ms is barley noticeable but being a drummer timing is of course critical and I can notice that the drums are ever so slightly lagging along to a metronome.

I can't seem to understand why i'm having this issue and this sound card is more than capable of tackling a simple midi signal.

My computer specs are:

iMac
2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM

I use this imac for professional video editing in HD so I know it's not the computers performance that is affecting the latency.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks :)
 
You will get some latency unless you're recording using direct monitoring.
You should be able to turn your Mixer knob on the front of the Saffire fully CCW to get 0 latency direct monitoring
or adjust it to a mix between delayed playback and direct monitoring.
 
max1805 said:
Hi folks, i'm new here so apologies if this has already been answered!

I'm using Cubase LE5 to record midi drums using my Roland TD-12. I was experiencing latency issues a while back so I decided to spend some cash and buy a good sound card. It's a Saffire 6 USB which was recommended to me. The guy in the shop told me that it would be more than capable of handling my midi signal and I would probably get 0ms latency.
Click to expand...

If you are recording MIDI and using your computer as your sound module then there will be latency. It takes some time for the computer to process the MIDI input and send a sound back out. 4ms would normally be considered very low latency.
 
jaygee said:
You will get some latency unless you're recording using direct monitoring.
You should be able to turn your Mixer knob on the front of the Saffire fully CCW to get 0 latency direct monitoring
or adjust it to a mix between delayed playback and direct monitoring.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I mis-read your post and my advice only relates to recording via analog.
 
jaygee said:
You will get some latency unless you're recording using direct monitoring.
You should be able to turn your Mixer knob on the front of the Saffire fully CCW to get 0 latency direct monitoring
or adjust it to a mix between delayed playback and direct monitoring.
Click to expand...

Ok, which knob is it that I turn CCW?

If you google 'Saffire 6 USB' in google images, take a look at the front part of the interface, if I turn any of the knobs counter clockwise it just turns down the volume... am I doing something wrong?
 
The knob labeled 'Mixer' mixes the level between input signal (counter clockwise) and return signal from computer (clockwise). But that wont help you if you are using midi input.
 
Yeah 4ms is about as close to zero you're ever going to get. And like others said that number has nothing to do with your MIDI latency. Just record the MIDI of your drums but monitor the analog output from the drum module.
 
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