First Time Using VSampler At Sonar Producer 3.1.1

[jerberson12]

This is the first time I use the Vsampler. I have a Midi keyboard connected to the Audiophile2496 soundcard. When I load some samples/sounds in the Vsampler and play it in my keyboard, it has a little bit of delay (sound is late from the time i press the key) for few millisec. Do i need to set something like midi latency? Or do I need to change or upgrade hardware? or does it normally do that? my system is windows xp, two soundcards - midi in at audiophile 2496 and audio out at delta 44, intel pentium 4 2.8ghz.

 

[Mountaineer]

You're referring to latency and your system horsepower will determine the minimum settings, however you can never reach zero. Why worry about it at all unless you are performing live? When I use soft synths I never need to hear the final result while recording. I just track with applicable midi keyboard tones ( piano, strings, horns, etc. ) to record the midi data, then sequence the recorded data through the sampler for playback and tweaking. Once I'm done and happy with the results, I bounce to a separate keeper audio track and get rid of the midi & synth out tracks by archiving to reduce CPU usage.
Actually, I think this is a quite common approach.

Regards,
Mountaineer

 

[minofifa]

hey mountaineer,
I have similar problems with my MIDI latency, so i was wondering if you could go into a bit more detail. Say you have a few tracks (audio) recorded already and you wanted to add a bass synth via midi. If you try playing along, you are always a bit too slow, this seems like it would be a pain in the ass to fix/edit. Is there a preferred way to deal with this? For me, the absolute lowest latency i can get is 23 milliseconds, that seams a bit high to me, what the frig. Gotta admit that is an annoying feature.

 

[moskus]

Open up the Delta Control Panel and sett the buffers to 128 samples. Then open Sonar and reprofile your card (if you're using WDM-drivers. If you use ASIO, you're good to go).

 

[Mountaineer]

minofifa:
All I'm saying is that I avoid triggering samples during the recording stage because I always have some latency. To keep from having to deal with timing issues caused by latency, if I want to add a bass synth line I simply choose a Midi bass tone on my keyboard ( there is ZERO latency with midi tones ), set up and arm a midi track and record while monitoring the audio and midi bass. Once I'm done recording the midi data, I then add my synth to the synth console in SONAR and assign the midi track as input. Now I can listen to my "cheesy" bass line data sequenced through the chosen synth and tweak the midi data accordingly ( piano roll view ) to perfect the sounds. The result I want is a clean strong signal with the proper timing and groove.

When I'm happy with the results, I bounce the tracks to a final audio track and archive the synth tracks. The keeper track is then treated just as any other audio track ... add effects, EQ, etc. and place it in the mix.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Mountaineer

 

[minofifa]

ahhh i see mountianeer,
So you use a midi sound in your keyboard to kindof hear what you are playing. I guess i was confused because the keyboard i have does not actually make any sounds (is an m-aduio evolution usb). I don't have a sound card that can play midi shit either (hope that makes sense). Anything i can do to get around this?

 

[dachay2tnr]

Anything i can do to get around this?

Yes, listen to moskus and reduce your latency (you should also move the latency slider to the left). If you can get below 5 ms you should have no problem. Even at 10ms you can probably work with slight delay. Over 10 ms you're probably SOL.

 

[jerberson12]

hi guys,
moskus your help didnt work but its still ok. I already know how to fix it. I made some experiments in my sonar. All i did, I click Option then Audio. below you can see the buffer size, just set it as low as you can. your problem is fix. I dont know any side effects yet. thank you and goodluck to all

 

[minofifa]

oh awsome moskus!!! I was starting to worry there for a minute that after spending all this money on a system, that latency would end me. What i'm wonderin gnow is, what is the trade-off that i made for good latency?? It shouldn't affect the audio recordings right?? i'm only concerned about the midi data dnd data is data right?? should i change the sample rate in control panel back up to its higher position when i want to do audio rcording again?? thanks a lot for the help. great sutff

 

[lapieuvre]

I experienced the same thing with DXi's and I had to reduce latency to record my keyboard tracks. (what you did by reducing the buffer size is what moskus suggested... reducing latency) It works for recording but the side effect is when you'll start mixing, adding effects you'll experience dropout. Then you can increase the buffer size and continue mixing.

Lapieuvre

 

[moskus]

I experienced the same thing with DXi's and I had to reduce latency to record my keyboard tracks. (what you did by reducing the buffer size is what moskus suggested... reducing latency) It works for recording but the side effect is when you'll start mixing, adding effects you'll experience dropout. Then you can increase the buffer size and continue mixing.

Or if you're like me and would like to keep your latency low (I use Input Monitoring for recording ), you can bounce your synths to a new track (select the MIDI and audio track, go to Edit -> Bounce), and then disable them in the Synth Rack. The only drawback is that if you want to change something in the synth-track, you have to do the change and then bounce again, which seems to be a lot of work if you have many synth tracks (like I do). But all this will change Cakewalk FINALLY REALIZES THAT WE WANT THE BEAUTIFULL FREEZE FUNCTION!!!

GIVE IT TO ME!

 

[minofifa]

ok just to be sure, let me give you an example of what i'm gonna do:

I have several tracks recorded (12), there are vocals, guitars, drums, and bass. Nothing is mixed yet, nor are there any effects present. Now i want to add some orchestra samples to this song via a DXi synth.

So i lower the buffer size to 128, open the sonar project and record my orchestra part. Then do i increase the buffer size again and start mixing?

Thanks for the help guys.

 

[moskus]

I have several tracks recorded (12), there are vocals, guitars, drums, and bass. Nothing is mixed yet, nor are there any effects present. Now i want to add some orchestra samples to this song via a DXi synth.

So i lower the buffer size to 128, open the sonar project and record my orchestra part. Then do i increase the buffer size again and start mixing?

You don't HAVE to do it. If Sonar runs fine with the buffers set at 128, then just leave it there.

I'm constantly running on 128 samples (when I'm working with audio, that is).

 

[jerberson12]

Hey moose-scoose

Besides you are a link giver, can you give me some sites with free or not too expensive sound samples intended for VSampler (*.vs3 with *.wav lol). I mean professional sound not that MSGMSynth. What I need, are orchestra sound (ensemble, voilin, strings, winds), drum samples, Techno/trance sounds and FX.

 

[moskus]

You know the two extra CDs that came with Sonar? They're filled with VSampler content.