PC as MIDI synth

[berk0080]

I currently own a Roland Sonic Cell MIDI synth. I really love the thing but would like to replace it with my PC.

I am running CUBASE 5 on a 64 bit Windows 7 machine with 3.5 GHz Quad CPU and 4GB of RAM. The big issue however is my crappy sound blaster card.

I want to upgrade to a better sound card but am not sure whether to do USB, Firewire or PCI.

Most importantly, I need a near-zero latency MIDI connection so I may play VST instuments live from a Keyboard to my PC.

An XLR Mic and 1/4" guitar input would be nice too...

Any suggestions? I am willing to spend 200-300.

Thanks!

-Justin

 

[Shadow_7]

It depends on what you'd call zero latency. I have an M-Audio Keystation 49e and in linux with fluidsynth I can get down to about a 20ms latency. Without overriding a few defaults, it's closer to 1/2 of a second. And my current system isn't fully optimized, but I do tend to be a bit minimalistic. If you're just going to record the midi events, you don't really need a lot. Even with the latency, you can quantize the events after the fact. A high latency does kind of screw with multi tracking and live performance though. How good is good enough?

If you want to mic the reproduction of the reproduction, you can do that too. I have an M-Audio Delta 44 that has 4x 1/4" TRS inputs and 4x outputs. But only 1.4" TRS and not much else. In that $100 (used) to $300-ish new range. By the time you throw in microphone preamp, headphone preamp, and cables, there are better values to be had IMO. Although decent converters.

 

[berk0080]

It depends on what you'd call zero latency. I have an M-Audio Keystation 49e and in linux with fluidsynth I can get down to about a 20ms latency. Without overriding a few defaults, it's closer to 1/2 of a second. And my current system isn't fully optimized, but I do tend to be a bit minimalistic. If you're just going to record the midi events, you don't really need a lot. Even with the latency, you can quantize the events after the fact. A high latency does kind of screw with multi tracking and live performance though. How good is good enough?

If you want to mic the reproduction of the reproduction, you can do that too. I have an M-Audio Delta 44 that has 4x 1/4" TRS inputs and 4x outputs. But only 1.4" TRS and not much else. In that $100 (used) to $300-ish new range. By the time you throw in microphone preamp, headphone preamp, and cables, there are better values to be had IMO. Although decent converters.

I will be using my Yamaha P-70 as the controller. Really I am concerned about finding the right hardware on the PC end to achieve very low latency as I will be performing live and want little to no delay.

What exactly is the latency most influenced by? I would assume the MIDI controller itself has very little influence on the latency. Is it then the sound card or the PC/MIDI interface that I need to be concerned with?

Basically, I want to find a piece of hardware I can use with CUBASE 5 that will offer the lowest possible latency priced between $200-$300 bones.

Thanks!

-Justin

 

[frederic]

MIDI is just a slow-ass serial interface, that's optically coupled. It transmits at 32 kilo bits per second. 8 bits per byte, note on and off being the simplest transmissions of two bytes - note number, then on or off.

So at a minimum, you're tranmitting 16 bits to do something, anything at all.

And, there's your latency. Add more data, it gets worse pretty quick.

 

[berk0080]

MIDI is just a slow-ass serial interface, that's optically coupled. It transmits at 32 kilo bits per second. 8 bits per byte, note on and off being the simplest transmissions of two bytes - note number, then on or off.

So at a minimum, you're tranmitting 16 bits to do something, anything at all.

And, there's your latency. Add more data, it gets worse pretty quick.

Ok thanks Fred, that makes sense.

Can I therefor purchase MIDI hardware for my PC that will allow VST software to function as well as my Roland Sonic Cell?

Thanks!

-Justin

 

[Shadow_7]

If your keyboard has onboard synthesis abilities, it's probably best to exploit those first. That'll have the least amount of latency. And there's hardware midi sound modules that lower the latency. But it's still an interface that dates back to the 1980's.

Some of the latency is the sound being synthesized. The attack takes time, which could be a couple of miliseconds, or a full second. Depending on the sound. You may just have to get used the latency and playing ahead of the beat. And/Or distribute the load of complex things over several keyboards. Like you'd see in those 80's videos. One keyboard for each hand.

 

[altitude909]

MIDI is just a slow-ass serial interface, that's optically coupled. It transmits at 32 kilo bits per second. 8 bits per byte, note on and off being the simplest transmissions of two bytes - note number, then on or off.

So at a minimum, you're tranmitting 16 bits to do something, anything at all.

And, there's your latency. Add more data, it gets worse pretty quick.

I'm sorry but that has nothing to do with it. Midi has been used on thousands of records, movie scores, etc for over 20+ years and no one had issues then. You would hear more latency from moving back 5 ft from the speaker than you would from any actual midi message latency. 32kb is still 4000 8 bit messages per second. The problem is with modern usb interfaces and their implementation on modern machines. You need a super stable, low jitter midi interface and a computer and sound card that run at extremely low buffers to get near 0 latency performance to use your comp like a hardware synth..

 

[dintymoore]

I have yet to try a soft synth that the latency didn't drive me nuts. It seems like the technology isn't there yet.