Latency Issues

[jman 31]

I'm posting this here because I spend most of my time in the DIY section, so please forgive me if this isn't the place for it.

I have an alesis dm5 module, DIY drumset, M-Audio delta 1010LT sound card and I'm running Sonar Cakewalk Producer version. The drums play just fine through the mixing board into the sound card. The issue comes when I try to use the midi and a cakewalk drum sample. I get the latency at that point. I see an ASIO driver selection for the audio tracks, but I don't see any ASIO options for the midi tracks. I do not fully understand the ASIO drivers by the way.

Does anyone have any suggestions for my setup?

Thanks in advance
Jeremy

[weldman]

Make sure you have a quick PC with lots of RAM for Producer...Mine lags a little of I play some audio tracks and trigger Session Drummer 2 at the same time.

Also check your settings to lower your buffers a little...but not too much as you will get some pops in the audio. There's a buffer for audio and MIDI, I found my Audio buffer to be a problem at one time.

Lastly, since you purchased Sonar Producer you are entitled to free online and phone support so feel free to give them a call if needed.

[Joe_K]

You'll only find the Latency for audio, MIDI latency is irrelevant within Sonar (it may be relevant in your external hardware ... the DM5 ... but it is likely miniscule, though I don't have a DM5 myself to verify that.).

In any event, at the "Mixing Latency" setting of the Audio Options dialog, open the "ASIO Panel" and set the buffer size to the lowest value that your Audio interface can handle. If there are pops, clicks or audio dropouts as you play and/or mix, bring the buffer latency up one value at a time until solved. That is your lowest usable latency for your project.

There is also the option in Sonar to use a "WDM" driver, that you may want to try (if you have a WDM driver installed for your audio hardware). Go to the "Advanced" tab and under "Playback and Recording" see if you can switch the Driver Mode to "WDM". If so, no harm in giving it a try. I actually run WDM in Sonar 6 as it seems to perform just slightly better (Sonar has optimizations for WDM).

Sonar will run a test when it loads to determine the characteristics of your audio interface via WDM. Let it. (this is the "Wave Profiler" option you will see in a sec ...)

Go back in the Audio Options and on now you will see in the "Mixing Latency" section, all of the options are enabled ... Wave Profiler, Buffers in Playback Queue and Buffer Size. The last two are how you set the buffer size of WDM drivers. Ajust both to their lowest value and adjust upward as needed. Generally, I get great results if the combination of the two settings reports that the effective latency is 2.9 ms.

[jman 31]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I haven't been able to figure it out yet, but I do think it is recording with no latency. It just takes a fraction of a second for it to play the sound back. I tried the WDM driver, but I found that the only way the sound card will play the drum samples without a softsynth in is through the ms wavetable synth. That only comes up when I have the ASIO drivers checked and not when I have the WDM checked.

I would use Session Drummer or something, but the drummer in my band likes the sounds he gets through the Alesis Module and I am trying to replicate them using the Alesis samples in Sonar.

I will get on the Sonar website and see what I can find out. Thanks.

[andisblue]

since you purchased Sonar Producer you are entitled to free online and phone support

how do you know he purchased it?

[Rewind]

ASIO is for audio processing, not midi. Your problem is probably not midi. Make sure you don't use the emulated driver. It helps to choose a small buffer, just not too small or you risk stalling your soundcard and get a nasty beep. A restart will solve it but it is annoying and often occurs with BFD2 if you choose a 1.5 millisecond, 32kB size buffer. The reason is they load huge samples. Superior 2 is a little better.

I have a [email protected] intel processor with 4 GB ddr PC2-8500 and Lynx L22. Not the most stable of soundcards but has better AD/DA converters than RME, some say.

You should not have a huge latency if you choose a buffer size of around 1024 samples [EDIT: not kb, I confused it with the CPU cache unit]. You could try another DAW, like cubase 3SX or 4. [EDIT: I use somewhere around 125-256 samples when using BFD2. It is fast and has a low risk of crashing. It all depends on how low you can go with your current setup. I mentioned 1024 samples because I do not know how fast computer he has. But that should at least work for certain, even on a Macbook =). On superior 2 I can use 64 samples without any problems. 32 if I like to play hard ball.]

If you want really sick latencies then buy a PCI-express soundcard. RME should release its 430 euro RME AIO soon. The bandwith is a lot better than PCI even, and I hope you can get down to 0.5 ms with a full BFD2 kit without any problems.

Firewire and USB will get you down to 4-5 ms seconds [EDIT: @125 samples], which is nice when you play guitar, but noticably slow on edrums. The upside is you can add a lot of crap in an external box, like reverb and preamps with knobs and everything. But don't be fooled! PCI and PCI-express is faster and more suitable for edrums, to my opinion. [EDIT: This is an eternal debate, but after I tested some crappy firewire/usb interfaces I go for PCI any time.]

[JrummerJ]

You should not have a huge latency if you choose a buffer size of around 1024 kB. You could try another DAW, like cubase 3SX or 4.

If you want really sick latencies then buy a PCI-express soundcard. RME should release its 430 euro RME AIO soon. The bandwith is a lot better than PCI even, and I hope you can get down to 0.5 ms with a full BFD2 kit without any problems.

Firewire and USB will get you down to 4-5 ms seconds, which is nice when you play guitar, but noticably slow on edrums. The upside is you can add a lot of crap in an external box, like reverb and preamps with knobs and everything. But don't be fooled! PCI and PCI-express is faster and more suitable for edrums, to my opinion.

First off, the buffer for audio is in samples, not kb.

Umm, not much latency @ 1024 samples buffer? I notice pretty unplayable latency from 512 and up, 256 is borderline. I usually run my M-Audio Firewire 410 @ 64 sample buffer in Toontrack Solo and at the Pro Tools minimum of 128 when recording. 1024 is unusable. I am running a Macbook Pro with 4GB RAM if it matters.

I don't know what you are talking about firewire interfaces being too slow unless you were trying to use them at 1024 buffer like you mentioned above. Firewire and some usb interfaces are absolutely fine and will get you latency low enough you can't even tell there is any (assuming your computer is decent and you are using the right drivers).

To the original poster, you need to go to M-Audio's website and download their driver for your OS. It should straighten things out. Don't try to use generic ASIO drivers, get theirs.

http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=support&tab=driver&serie_ID=1&PID=2b0aae232aeed5529a4916b0c8c33c4b&OS=71#tabs

J

[jman 31]

Thanks I'll give that a try.