help with latency - Cubase Le

[spkldgecko]

I have a Lexicon Lambda USB interface that was bundled with Cubase Le at the time of purchase. My computer has the following specs - 60 Gig HD - 512 RAM - 2 Gig CPU Celeron. I can record, play, etc. with a midi keyboard with no problem. However, if try to record my Roland V-Drums as either an instrument in or as a Midi device, I get horrible latency and muddy playback, to boot. Anyone out there know a solution. If its a matter of more RAM, I'm maxed out on slots and would have a pretty good expense to double it and I don't want to go that route unless I know for sure that that is the problem. Thanks.

[dementedchord]

seems to me there's no reason that it should have a harder time with v-drums than akeyboard... infact should be perhaps a bit easier... and dont understand why it would be muddy... you didnt say but i'll bet this is a laptop right?? though kind of convoluted there may be a work around for the latency issue if it plays back properly when not recording... is this true??? in otherwords when you play back a drum track it's in time none of the latency is present...midi instruments have the ability to turn off local sounds... this keeps it from playing twice while hitting it... it would trigger when you played it and then trigger again when it recieved the returning signal from the puter... make sense so far??? so what you might try is turn local ON and record with the track muted for playback... this way you'll only hear the initial triggering... then unmute the track and see if it plays back normally...


another issue you may be experiencing is the hard drives in alotta laptops are trash... and recording to a second hard drive is a neccessity...

[spkldgecko]

Thanks for the info. It is a tower computer - I kept it when I recently got a new one. The muddiness may be due to other factors in the recording chain that I haven't addressed yet. But there is a definite latency problem with monitoring and recording. A lot of crackles to go along with it. I have tried every combination of buffer size, number of clusters, and CPU usage and can't get it to record properly. The sad thing is that I'm a drummer and have no musical skills in any other instrument. I was thinking that it may be that the computer I'm using can't handle this particular input for some reason. Anyway, if anyone has a solution, I sure would appreciate any input. Thanks again.

[dementedchord]

when you said it maxed out the ram at 512 i took it as a clue for the laptop... my bad...

[NYMorningstar]

Aside from adding RAM you might want to try another hard drive and dedicate it just to record to. They're pretty cheap these days.

[dementedchord]

also check your systray... how many other services are running while you are recording??? turn them off if unnecessary to operation...

[spkldgecko]

Thank you NYMorningstar and dementedchord for your suggestions. I will try them and see if any of it makes a difference.