Latency with SB live

M

MadStrum!

New member
I am using the sb live card to record from my mixer and the keyboard and the latency sux bad when I try to record drums using the dxis or livesynth pro.
Will getting a Audiophile 2496 card solve these issues?
Does the 2496 record digital sound any better than the sb live?

Pier.
 
soundblaster

I too Have had latency, even dropouts with sb live.
I just picked up a 2496 havent installed yet cause i am building a new p4 2 gig machine. I am going to try both cards with sonor
and see what happens will keep ya posted on results
 
MadStrum! said:
Will getting a Audiophile 2496 card solve these issues?
Does the 2496 record digital sound any better than the sb live?
Click to expand...
I believe the absolute lowest latency you can get with an SB Live is 10 ms. The Delta can go down around 1.5 ms. However, there is a lot more to latency than just the sound card. The soundcard's drivers, the OS, and your computer hardware will all effect the level of latency you can achieve as well.

The 2496 will record at 24 bits, whereas the SB Live will only record at 16 bits. It also has better A/D converters. So, yes, it should help you get better recorded sound. Here again, though, there are lot's of other things that effect the equation - mics, preamps, room, etc.

The bottom line, however, is you would be making a good move to junk the SB (or keep it just for midi) and go for the Delta. However, it may or may not solve your latency problem.
 
I'm using the drivers from http://come.to/sblive and I got a very workable latency (I don't know how many ms but it just works great. the site claims 8ms) and no dropouts (on a celeron 466/128 mb). The DSP features are lots of fun to play with too by the way.
In other words: IMHO the problems you seem to have don't necessarily have to come from the soundblaster live.
 
I record all my midi tracks using a soundfont that is close to what I`m after, First. The SBlive card won't allow me to use mutlitple dxi synths and record another track due to the latency. When finished recording all the basic tracks i want, I then route them to the dxi synths I want to use, tweak them up, mix, and then bounce to a single stereo audio track. You can then mute all the tracks, archive, or delete them, except the new audio track, this will allow you to record additional new tracks to accompany it from there. (Thats how i get by most of the latency from the sblive). Also once you bounce the virtual sunths to a single track the mixing is over except for EQ adjustments, unless you delete that new audio track and start over again. Getting a 24/96 is probably the most offered and best advice for SB users like you and me. However the SB cards do really well with midi, its just dealing with audio and inserted virtual devices that they seem to crash and burn so easily.
 
sweet i downloaded those kx drives and my rear surround speakrs work now and it sounds a bit better
thanks for the link!
 
christiaan said:
I'm using the drivers from http://come.to/sblive and I got a very workable latency (I don't know how many ms but it just works great. the site claims 8ms) and no dropouts (on a celeron 466/128 mb). The DSP features are lots of fun to play with too by the way.
In other words: IMHO the problems you seem to have don't necessarily have to come from the soundblaster live.
Click to expand...

Thanks christiaan, I`ll check out this new release. The last one didnt pan out that well so I use the creative drivers from compaq. I`m running an AMD 1.3 with 512 mg of PC2100 ram.
This may work well for some, but I do feel though that in my case the sb just can`t hang when you have 4 or more tracks of virtual synths and then try to record additional audio. I`ve used 4 different sources of drivers including the kx and still couldnt overcome the latency issues. My solution was using soundfonts and then patching the dxi`s in after all the recording was done. If the new driver pak overcomes this I`ll cut you a check :)
 
...Hey Christiaan, can you tell me the cons of using this driver ? I downloaded it, but still not applied it yet. Once I did install it in one of my PC, but somehow it mess with soundfont setting. I dunno if I did something wrong, the property layout seems pretty new to me, and need a general explanation on "what does what" here. I still stick with Microsoft one, but curious to use it since many friends recommend it. Is there any cons you know about this driver ? Thank's buddy...
;)
 
James Argo said:
...Hey Christiaan, can you tell me the cons of using this driver ? I downloaded it, but still not applied it yet. Once I did install it in one of my PC, but somehow it mess with soundfont setting. I dunno if I did something wrong, the property layout seems pretty new to me, and need a general explanation on "what does what" here. I still stick with Microsoft one, but curious to use it since many friends recommend it. Is there any cons you know about this driver ? Thank's buddy...
;)
Click to expand...

Well, I don't use soundfonts so I don't really know if they'll work properly with this drivers although I think they should. The layout of the E-mu APS mixer control takes quite some time to get used to but is way more flexible than Windows' mixer.

For instance: I play mainly bass and with my meek pre, my behringer mixer and my soundblaster live, I'm able to practice along with mp3s while using the onboard soundeffects of the sblive (reverb, echo, chorus, flanger, autowah, distortion etc. etc.) to spice up my bass sound realtime. hearing it all coming out of my speakers.
You won't be able to do that with the original drivers.
 
So the Audiophile 2496 does not help with midi at all? Even if I get one, my latency with dxis will not improve, is that it?

Pier.
 
MadStrum! said:
So the Audiophile 2496 does not help with midi at all? Even if I get one, my latency with dxis will not improve, is that it?

Pier.
Click to expand...
The answer is, it may or it may not.

What latency are you getting with the SB? What is your computer system?

There are a lot of variables involved in latency. The sound card is just one of them. Delta also has decent WDM drivers (so long as you are running Win2K or WinXP) which is another plus for better latency. The rest will depend on your system.
 
Now that I remember... There actually is a con. I miss the Soundblaster Pro emulation for old DOS games which I occasionally still like to play. But I can live with that.
 
I installed the kx drivers for my card, and when I used sonar to play my previously recorded files , I can hear many pops and blips.... so I uninstallled it.

Pier.
 
dachay2tnr said:
The answer is, it may or it may not.

What latency are you getting with the SB? What is your computer system?

There are a lot of variables involved in latency. The sound card is just one of them. Delta also has decent WDM drivers (so long as you are running Win2K or WinXP) which is another plus for better latency. The rest will depend on your system.
Click to expand...

My system is as follows :
AMD 1800+ 256 MB ram 401248cdr SB live sound card
Inno 3d 64MB Geforce MX II graphics card
I don't know how to measure the latency but it is definitely not good enough for me to record midi coz I can actually feel the delay.

Pier.
 
Your system is decent (although you might want to up the memory to 512) and you should be able to get relatively low latency with a good soundcard, WDM drivers, and software capable of using the WDM drivers. (I assume you can also do this with ASIO drivers and ASIO software, but I have no firsthand knowledge of the ASIO world.)

Of course, the more you tax the system, the more difficult it becomes to sustain a low latency setting. In other words, as you increase the track count and add additional plugins the system will have trouble keeping up, resulting in dropouts (i.e., audio stops playing/recording).

This is a tricky area, with a lot of variables. No one is going to be able to tell you what latecy you can achieve, except in a very general sense.

What audio software are you using? I use Sonar, which has a screen where you can read what your effective latency is.
 
Toki and I use the same method (which I am sure alot of other people do as well). You might need to make that jump to the delta (as Dachay suggested). Your system seems good enough. Maybe with a soundcard with better WDM drivers will help make up the difference you are looking for...


Vice
 
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