Linking Electric drum kit to EZ Drummer using a Midi Keyboard Issues

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Pacman454

New member
Hey Guys, I'm a newbie to the forum. Maybe some of you have experienced and hopefully solved this problem already

I'm using an Roland Electric Drumkit daisy chained through my Akai MPK Midi Keyboard to control EZ DRummer. It all works pretty well and is a lot more fun than programming beats or using EZ drummer preset grooves.

One Problem I'm having is Latency.

My setup current setup I use a pod x3 as my soundcard. This does not have any midi inputs though. :wtf:

So I also have the Midi keyboard going through another usb port; then the EDrum Kit hooked up to the Keyboard using a midi Cable

Question is: .. Does this Daisy Chaining add to the Latency?

If it does I will probably have to get another interface which accepts midi directly.
OR
Would one of those cheap Midi to usb adaptors do a better Job? ...Any Recommendations appreciated :)
 
Yeah, your convoluted setup is probably causing your latency problems.

Adding a USB to midi cable should be functiontally the same as a new interface which has midi ports built in so if you're looking for a cheap fix to your problem that's probably the way to go.

Dunno which --- if any --- of my fave mail order merchants serves you there in the UK, but I'm sure you know some good ones.
 
I didn't think that MIDI had any sort of latency itself. I could be wrong tho. Not really my gig.

What DAW are you using? Have you tried lowering the buffer settings of your interface?
 
MIDI can have some latency, but I don't think I've ever had a situation where it was enough to be noticeable/cause a problem. It is more likely to be the actual digital audio latency. Do you notice the delay if you try to trigger EZDrummer directly from the USB keyboard?
 
I think I have a solution to this guys. Thanks to the Advice of a guy working in a music Store.

I have yet to try it though but here it goes:

Basically as ashcat said, it may be more to do with digital Audio latency than actual Midi latency So here is my solution: (Maybe this is blatantly obvious to some users, but I'm gonna put it up anyway in the hope it might help somebody.

1. Trying to play the hits live from ez drummer/superior drummer etc is causing the slight delay to load the samples.

2. Solution: Similar to dry recording guitars and adding the tones/effects later .. we are going to capture the midi hits ''dry'' and then apply that midi track to our drum plugin.

3. To do this you can utilize 2 outputs from edrum kit at once. the line out; (Hooked to headphones or speaker so you can actually here the drum hits - As oppossed to just the physical hits.)

And the Midi out; Which will record the midi info as you play.

(NOTE): You could also record the line out and midi simultaneously to two separate tracks.

Hope this is of some help. I'm far from an expert so feel free to make any corrections guys.
 
You can do that. It's almost guaranteed that the drum module's internal sounds won't sound anywhere near as good as ezdrummer, but it'll give you something to work from.

It shouldn't be necessary, though. I play ezdrummer in realtime pretty regularly without any issues. There will always be a slight delay, but you should be able to adjust your audio buffer settings and get it down to something you can work with.

Just FYI, the samples in ezdrummer are all loaded into RAM as soon as you open it up, and they start playing as soon as it receives the MIDI message. The delay comes from your soundcard's buffer settings.
 
I see what you mean. Just about to build a proper computer for recording and producing. (So I'm Pretty sure I'll only have to do this until I get the PC up and running.)

Would you mind posting up your PC Specs as you mentioned you can play in realtime with no issue.

And cheers for clearing up about the sounds being loaded to RAM; I'm currently using medium buffer on POD X3. (trying to balance performance and Stability)
 
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