reduce latency

[jurgen]

does anyone know how to reduce latency? I have a SB live player5.1 and use sonar as sequencer/soft synth. when I record or play synth or guitar, I have a huge latency problem. at least 1/2 sec... I got the driver from the installation CD and I let sonar auto-configure audio.

thanks!
jurgen

 

[Gargamel]

What O/S are you using? Oh yeah, I find that on my computer (PIII 450mhz, 1084mb ram, 2 7200 rpm 40gb hard drives, 2 5400rpm 20gb hard drives) that its a good idea to use the Clean Audio Disk feature to get rid of old wav's that were recorded. This usually helps. Be sure not erase any wav's from current projects you are working on.

What O/s?

 

[jurgen]

win98SE

 

[dachay2tnr]

You need to get WDM drivers to get low latencies. Not sure if they are available for SB Live with Win 98. There are Win ME versions out there that might work. Wroth a try anyway.

You could also try manually lowering the latency settings in Sonar. Go into Audio | Options and move the slider to the left, or reduce the buffer size. You will need to play around with this until you get a setting that will run stable. Generally too low of a latency will cause dropout problems.

(Also reprofile your sound card after making changes.)

 

[Gidge]

also, you need a bad ass CPU for soft synths.....

 

[jurgen]

OK, I switched to win2000, installed the wdm drivers, optimized the settings... I get a latency of 11ms now, even when I record a guitar. I used to have no problem with my old SB128PCI, or was that just imagination? but how can you record guitars if the computer records everything 11ms later than you play it? if you're behind on the click track, it isn't right is it? please help me out here, I'm new to this stuff...

 

[dachay2tnr]

I think 10 ms is the lowest you are going to get with the SB Live card.

I've read of some people getting 1.5 ms latency with some of the Delta cards. Although there is a trade-off between latency and the performace of your system. The lower the latency, the more problems you will have with drop-outs, etc. If you've got a high horsepower system, you can probably get it to work with fairly low latencies (but you'll need a different sound card).

I've also read that a *normal* musician can only notice latencies over 5 ms.

All of that said, you shouldn't be having a latency problem recording guitar (unless it's a midi guitar) or vocals. Only with synths or midi - unless you are using input monitoring. What recording software are you using? If Sonar, turn off input monitoring in the Options Audio toolbar.

 

[sjoko2]

Ohhhhhhhh how lovely Macs are perhaps now you see why

 

[jurgen]

yes, I use sonar, and turned off the input monitoring. It sounds OK, but apparently sonar records my guitar 11ms after I play it. here's how I tested that: I recorded a click track on 1 track. then I played that first track and recorded it on another track. the difference: 11ms. this is latency, right? or did I get the definition wrong?

and for you sjoko2: the day macintosh introduces the 2nd mouse button & scroll wheel, cuts its price in half and makes sure their software is affordable, I'll buy one.

 

[jurgen]

I forgot: I have the same situation in CEP and sonar, so it is not software-related

 

[longsoughtfor]

jurgen - A while back while doing a PCI card design, I did an analysis of different PCI cards. I found that some PCI Video cards were causing extreemly long latency problems on the bus. I can't say for sure if that is your problem or not, but I offer it as a datapoint. Most PC's these days have the Video card on an AGP bus and the PCI is used for Audio, Networking, Modem (sometimes) and other peripheral devices. YMMV but, you can easily check if other cards are causing the latency issues buy removing them one at a time.

Good luck
Kevin.

 

[Alchemist3k]

Ohhhhhhhh how lovely Macs are perhaps now you see why

*slaps Sjoko on the head for such blasphemy*

We all know tacitly that Macs are better but never give Apple the satisfaction of admitting it publicly!

 

[sjoko2]

I like to go against the grain..............

Ehhhhhhh latency? isn't that a PC problem???

 

[Alchemist3k]

No latency is a secret weapon that Apple engineered to attack the efficiency of PCs for audio....

 

[sjoko2]

amn those apples are clever!! How did they manage to get it in each and every PC???

 

[jurgen]

even more important: how do we get it out of our PC's again?

seriously, is latency really a non-issue for macs?