MIDI delay / lagging !!

[calle]

Hi!

I have the problem so many seem to have but noone can give a straigth answer to:

How do you avoid lagging when connecting MIDI to your computer?

I have 1.6 mhz, Audiophile 2496 and so on, everything working perfect in all other aspects when recording etc but when I want to play MIDI in Fruity Loops using Yamaha keyboard (PSR-140) the sound comes slightly after I press down the key. Impossible to play that way.

Please help me! Grateful for answers!!!

Calle

[subtractor]

That's called latency. It's pretty much unavoidable, although it sometimes can be compensated for. But unfortunately with your setup I have no idea how to help you with that. See if there's anything in your manuals or software that refers to latency concerning midi.

[AlChuck]

calle,

Playing software synths in real time requires the right drivers for your sound card, so that the audio hardware can trigger the note it's asked to play by the recording software through the synth software... The OS and the software synth as well must support these drivers...

Depending on your recording software and your OS, you might use ASIO or WDM drivers to achieve this.

If you can't get working low-latency drivers, an alternative is to record using some other sound source, and then switch to the software synth after the MIDI performance has been recorded.

[calle]

Yeah, but I still dont quite get it, cause I have a friend who has no latency what so ever with crappy old computer and crappy soundblaster card. he has a fairly good yamaha keyboard though. so im thinking if this could be the problem, that my keyboard isnt good enough, its the cheapest possible yamaha.

i didnt quite get the part about drivers. i mean the drivers for audiophile was included when i bought it and those have been working fine. do i need other drivers than those who were included? remember i have no latency at all when i record regular audio.

what do you say? calle

[AlChuck]

The crappy old soundblaster is playing sounds from its wavetable hardware synth, so it's pretty close to instantaneous in response to incoming MIDI note messages.

Your Audiophile has no on-board synth and can only respond to incoming MIDI messages via a softsynth, which means that what's in hardware on the SB card is running as another task on the PC under the OS... so you're adding a whole extra layer of overhead that the your buddy doesn't have to deal with at all...

...and without WDM or ASIO drivers it just won't happen without a noticeable lag.

It has absolutely nothing to do with the keyboard quality, as long as it's sending MIDI messages properly.

Hope that makes it clearer...

[LAZI]

Yo buddy's probably using his joysticl port. Right? Me on the other hand.. I use a Midiman 2X2 and it's a real bitch. I need help. I got USB midi and USB audio. I can't take the latency....

[calle]

thanks again for answering. my last questions now are:

1 what is ASIO drivers and WDM drivers? Again - isnt the drivers for audiophile's drivers enough?

2 oh, one more thing, if the soundblaster card is enough for midi why isnt audiophile constructed the same way? nobody wants to have lagging right?

3 can i have my old soundblaster card installed at the same time as audiophile and just run midi through soundblaster and the rest through audiophile?

thanx!

[TexRoadkill]

1. Those are the different types of drivers available for your card. They ARE the audiophile drivers. There are different types for diff OS's and softsynths.

2. The SB has a HARDWARE synth chip and the audiophile does not. Why? Ask Maudio.

3. Yes, but that wont help if you are playing the Fruity Loops sounds. Only the onboard SB sounds. Refer to #1 for the proper solution.