Hello, and a couple of questions (latency and what S/C) :)

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DE9

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First of all, hi there everyone. Looking forward to lots on interesting discussion and helpfull information from everyone. From browing some past threads most people seem clued up and pretty reasonable, which is always a bonus. ;)

Right, my first question relates to latency on my Sound Blaster Extigy (I know, I know :( ) Running SX latency is about 740ms. I know its a shitty card but is it really that bad??? The latency in Reason 2.5 is 92 seconds using the DX driver, but goes to 740 with the ASIO one. Looking round the net I found http://usb-audio.com/ which claims to be a better driver and will drammatically reduce the latency of the card but this is no use as it won't run Midi and I've just splashed out on a Juno106 and I'm itching to get some proper use out of it.
Any suggestions as to how I might be able to lower the latency?

If the answer which I anticpate comes back then this brings me onto my next question. What soundcard would you guys recommend to someone like me with a maximum of about £200 to spend? I've got a laptop and and I'm producing more and more these days so I'd like get something pretty decent with the money (if thats achievable on that budget) - I don't want to make the same mistake as the extigy again!! Should I stay on USB2 or maybe try the firewire or PC Card routes. All suggestions gratefully received.

Anyway, thanks in advance, and sorry for the long winded message.

I'm also sorry if these kinda latency problems for people with really shitty cards crop up alot and its annoying for the regulars of the forum!!

:)
Mike
 
Welcome to the BBS Mike.

Don't worry about annoying anyone with questions. It's some of the answers that get annoying:)
How are you set up to track presently and where are you monitoring from? Are you looking to expand in the future?
 
ehm, i think you do something wrong man,
i also got an Extigy laying around, i used it for about a year,
never ever touched it again since i first worked with a Delta1010,
now i got a motu828 and god, i'm gonna throw that Extigy against the wall someday since its no use for me anymore

but, that's not what i wanna say,
i remember working with it, wasn't that bad, and the latency wasn't as terrible as on your system !!!!!

for midi you should be able to get close to...... i'm not sure but 11 milliseconds,
yeah, i think i had that

and just for audio, dude, i never had problems,

are u sure you got the HARDWARE ACCELERATION of your pc's audio set to MAXIMUM ?
that might help !

and for the rest, i donno,but what kind of pc or laptop are you using?

i'm sure you can get alot better latency !
 
about this USB driver=

Limitations using Creative Extigy with this driver: 48 kHz, stereo output, line or mic input (digital input only while output is muted), no MIDI, no remote control functionality. We worked hard to change this, still it seems to be impossible at the moment. But low latency at least...
 
At that price point my recommendation would be the M Audio Delta 1010LT

http://www.dv247.com/invt/173

2x mic pres (which I have to say I don't use but they're there if you want them)

8 analogue ins/outs

midi i/o, spdif i/o

Good stuff for the money
 
audio harware accelleration is at maximum

Using a Sony Vaio PCG-FR215H, AMD Athlon 2200+, 786 mb RAM, XP.

Any ideas?
 
Ok, made a big step forward. Had a bit of a fuck about with the device settings and I've changed to the DirectX Full Duplex driver instead of the Multimedia one. The output latency is now at 46 ms, which is much more useable creativly now. Still could be a bit lower but its much better than it used to be. Is that about he best I can expect with the extigy? What is the latency on your systems?

The input latency is still pretty high, over 300ms, what is that going to effect?

Mike
 
Audio input suggestions

Hey all

The key with using Cubase/steinberg products is finding a card or a/d converter with a good ASIO driver. You will not find this in the more consumer level products like the audigy. But, you also don't have to spend an arm and a leg. If you're on a laptop, you may want to go USB.

M-Audio has some good USB devices and they write great ASIO drivers for their hardware. For all the trouble trying to get audigy to run well, you can now get an m-audio "Fast Track" for $129 US or less. ( m-audio fast track ) No phantom power, but lots of cool software and options.

Edirol also does a great job on their hardware and drivers. Their UA-25 is very compact and very cool.

With any USB device you will find a higher latency than PCI cards, but you should be able to get well below 300ms input (of course this depends on your system configuration and motherboard, and a whole nest of other stuff).

Hope that helps!

Jason
 
now...
i got a very nice soundcard for recording,
but it has no midi in or out,

i do have an extigy laying around but just don't ever touch it, its not even connected to my pc

i'm looking out for just some sort of MIDI card,,,,

with no other audio options,
but ehm....

any links with useful info on that?

i got my midi keyboard standing here, haven't used it for a long time,
and now i'm gonna try to hook it up again,

so it might be time to get some decent card ..

read nice things about Maudio,
but is this the only brand to look at?

thanx
 
I do MIDI through USB using a MOTU micro lite. It is a 5-port unit (5 midi in's and 5 midi-outs) and works great for me (and is rock solid). There a few interfaces out there, but I recommend MOTU.

You said you're using a MOTU 828? Is that a mkII? If so, you have a MIDI in and out on that.
 
Lookup a driver called ASIO4ALL, its free and it worked with my extigy
 
latency

Revaudio is absolutely right-on 'bout the ASIO driver thing...I'm using a PIII750/.5Gb/ 98se with an staudio card ($250.00 can.) and cubase vst5.2 (pretty old huh?) but am running bout 5ms latency!(direct hardware monitoring enabled) So as you can see, dedicated ASIO drivers/soundcard are more important to latency performance than the system itself!!

The staudio card is great..8in/out(2 of which have XLR/mic-pre)..midi in/2 midi out..AES/EBU I/O..S/PDIF I/O
 
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