Laptop Latency Issues - Help Needed

lanceallen

New member
I have a Dell Laptop that is a few years old. Here are the specs:
- P3 1 GHZ
- 256 MB SDRAM
- 20 GB HD
- Windows 2000

I recently added:
- MidiSport 2x2 USB
- Echo Indigo I/O Soundcard
- Reason 2.5

The system works great with my midi keyboard, but when I use my TrapKat (a midi percussion controller that you use sticks on) the computer or something can't keep up with fast rolls. Not only diddle rolls, but fast single strokes. It misses some hits.

I'm new to using a computer for music. I don't have any idea where to start looking to see what is wrong.

Is it the USB midi interface? Is it the RAM? Is it the software? Is it the hard drive? Is it the processor? Is it the upgraded soundcard?

Any help would be much appreciated.
 
1 question before we get into this...

can you do the rolls on the keyboard?

ie can you play notes as quickly as the rolls you want to do?

If you can it's probably that controller...

If not... we'll take the next step from there.

also... what software are you using?
 
I can't do the rolls as fast on the keyboard. On the drum controller I can use sticks and I'm faster with sticks.

The music software I'm using is Reason 2.5.
 
not trying to be a bear... but... can you do a gliss on the piano?

also, do you have an external sound module that you can use with the drumpad?

I just want to rule that piece out before we get into the laptop itself, as that will be a more lengthy process

:)
 
I can do a gliss on the midi keyboard, and to me it sounds like every note is playing.

I use an E-Mu 5000 hardware sampler with the drum controller and it keeps up with every single note just fine.
 
cool!

First thing is first then... you have an almost identical laptop to what I have, and I've been able to get midi instruments to play fine in it... so we should be able to fix this...

I'm going to guess you have an understanding about computers... so...

go into your control panel and the sounds and audio devices icon...

what does it say under audio is the midi driver?

is it the one from the new soundcard, or the onboard card? Is it up to date?

what are your driver settings in reason? (I don't have reason, so we'll just have to learn together)

Are you using different soft synths for the keyboard and the drum pad?

I think your laptop should be adequate for midi playback, so lets start with these steps.

That said, RAM will almost always boost your performance more immediately then anything else. Do you have a pc as well that you could use to troubleshoot?

Let me know about some of these settings. And try each of the soundcard's midi drivers.

I'll talk to you soon.

~Rich
 
I finally got a chance to try some of your suggestions and when I got looked in Reason in the audio preferences there is a control panel for the audio card. And in there I was able to lower the buffer size to 256 from 512 and that fixed the problem.

I can play my drum controller as fast as I can and it doesn't miss a beat!!! Thank you for your comments. They helped me "regroup" and attack the problem.
 
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