noob needs latency help with Sonar 4/EZD

M

maryslittlesecret

New member
Hi, all. I just got EZ Drummer (which seems awesome) and, after an hour of trying to figure out the whole DXi/MIDI controller routing thing (which was totally new to me), I finally seem to have this working to a degree.

However, I'm getting some really bad latency (which I know nothing about) in my performance. I went into the Audio options (per the Help files) and slid the latency slider as far left as it would go -- 23.2 seconds -- which is still noticable.

I'm at a loss of how to fix/improve this. I have a decent machine (3Ghz P4 and 2G RAM), so the CPU shouldn't be an issue. Can anyone help me out with this? Thanks much.
 
First, what sound card are you using. If you are using an integrated sound card, or an SB Live or something, you are not going to get really good latency.

Second, what drivers are you using? You need to be using WDM or ASIO to get sub 10ms latency.

Lastly, assuming you have decent sound card and are using the correct drivers, you probably need to go into the control applet for the sound card and reduce the buffer size. Can't give you specifics here, since each sound card is a little different.

In general, with your system and a decent sound card, you should be able to obtain relatively decent latency.
 
Thanks for the reply, dachay2tnr. I'm using an EgoSys Wami Rack 24, which is a pretty decent soundcard.

I believe the drivers are WMD, but when I was snooping around in Sonar I think I saw the option to switch to ASIO. Can you tell me what the difference between the two driver types are and what the up/down side is of using one over the other?

Also, after I posted last night, I found that my soundcard has five different latency settings -- from 128 to 2048. Any suggestions on how I should set it? Again, what's the up/down side of the different latency settings?
 
i believe lower latency uses more CPU but tightens up the playing. I use low latency for midi (Drums, keys) and raise it for audio. Not sure why your buffer can't go lower. I set it at 11.5 for midi. But I have Sonar 5 PE. I would think you can go to audio in Sonar 4, not sound card and set buffer lower.
 
maryslittlesecret said:
Thanks for the reply, dachay2tnr. I'm using an EgoSys Wami Rack 24, which is a pretty decent soundcard.

I believe the drivers are WMD, but when I was snooping around in Sonar I think I saw the option to switch to ASIO. Can you tell me what the difference between the two driver types are and what the up/down side is of using one over the other?

Also, after I posted last night, I found that my soundcard has five different latency settings -- from 128 to 2048. Any suggestions on how I should set it? Again, what's the up/down side of the different latency settings?
Click to expand...
Drivers define the way that your hardward communicates with your software and vice-versa. The original driver mode defined for Windows-based systems was MME. The problem with MME is that all communication was done through Windows. This added a layer of overhead, which added to response time (i.e., latency). Because this limitation created performance problems in audio applications, Steinberg developed a different driver model (ASIO). ASIO allowed for more direct communication between the software and hardware and allowed for lower latencies in implementations where both software and hardware conformed to this standard.

Microsoft (working with other manufacturers - including Cakewalk I believe) later caught up, and released an updated driver model called WDM (windows driver model). This had the same advantages of ASIO, plus the added advantage of Microsoft support. Sonar has always supported WDM, and later (probably for competitive reasons) added support for ASIO.

IMO, there is not necessarily a better or worse one of the two choices. Or rather it depends on how well the drivers are written by the sound card manufacturers. Some sound cards have better ASIO drivers, while others have better WDM drivers, and even others where there are equal. My own preference is to start with WDM, and use ASIO only if you find you have problems with WDM, or find you can get better performance from ASIO.

As for your sound card, I would start with the buffer setting at 128. If it performs OK at that level, leave it there. If you find you are getting dropouts, stuttering, or other anomolies, raise it one setting at a time until it stablilzes (you will probably need to reprofile the card each time you make a change). As Albert indicated, the lower settings will give you better latency, but will place more demands on your equipment. You need to find the right balance between latency and performance - which is somewhat unique for each individual system. There is no single right answer. Just what works best for you.
 
Albertm said:
i believe lower latency uses more CPU but tightens up the playing. I use low latency for midi (Drums, keys) and raise it for audio. Not sure why your buffer can't go lower. I set it at 11.5 for midi. But I have Sonar 5 PE. I would think you can go to audio in Sonar 4, not sound card and set buffer lower.
Click to expand...

There are buffers in Sonar as well as the sound card, but the buffers that control the latency are actually in the API driver (i.e. WDM or ASIO). when you go to OPTIONS>AUDIO>ADVANCED and click on the ASIO driver button at the bottom (assuming you're running ASIO driver mode, of course), it will bring up your sound card's software control panel. Somewhere in that control panel will be an option to change the buffers. For example, I use the m-audio delta 44. the ASIO button brings up the same control panel as if I had clicked on the little black "M" in my systray. Under hardware tab, there's an option to change the buffer settings. this will directly affect the latency and it will tell you by how much when you change the buffer number.

the buffers in Sonar are software buffers built into the program and are in addition to the sound card buffers.
 
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