Struggling with midi keyboard and latency

[Nevian]

My first post!

I'm all new to home recording, but here is my first issue. I've connected a quite old keyboard (Yamaha PSR-90) to my PC. It only has good old midi ports and so I've connected it directly to my PC via USB as my audio interface doesn't have midi ports. This connection results in some latency when using it with VSTs.

1. Is there anything to suggest latency would have been lower had it been connected through my audio interface?
2. I'm using Midi-USB adapter. Does this add to the latency more than if the keyboard had a USB connection to begin with?
3. Modern keyboards typically come with a USB-B → USB-A cable, but most audio interfaces don't seem to have USB inputs. So if point 1 is true, how is such a keyboard meant to be connected and still have low latency?

 

[gecko zzed]

1 Latency is not determined by whether you go direct via USB, or via midi on an interface.
2 Midi-USB will not affect latency
3 Going direct from keyboard to PC via USB should still have low latency.

However, what will affect latency is where the audio is being produced. So even if your interface doesn't have midi ports, you should be using it as an output device. If, for example, you are using your PC's wavetable or similar, then you are likely to experience latency.

So you should select USB as a midi input device, then the interface as an output device.

If you are already doing this, but still getting latency, then you would need to look for other factors that might be taking up your CPU.

 

[Nevian]

However, what will affect latency is where the audio is being produced. So even if your interface doesn't have midi ports, you should be using it as an output device.

So you should select USB as a midi input device, then the interface as an output device.

Excellent! That did the trick, thanks