Latency from MicroKontrol to Reason 4. HELP!

[AEnimic]

I've just gotten myself a MicroKontrol to be used as a MIDI controller. I realised that when I use the drumpads, the reaction time is delayed by a second. Kinda bad cause drumming needs to be precise to build on the other layers. Any help here please?

I'm running on a 11 month computer with AMD Athlon 64 x2 Dualcore Processor 4000+ 2.10GHz, 3GB RAM and heck loads of HD space cause I use an external HD and internal HD. AND running on Windows Vista Home Basic.

I don't see why there is a small latency problem cause all the programs work fine even if I open all the stuff I need at once (e.g. Gearbox, Ableton 6.0.9, Reason 4).

I use the MicroKontrol mainly in Reason. Latency isn't that bad, but it's abit off from the moment I press the pad to the moment I hear the sound. E.g. when I quickly tap and release, the sound will come at the moment I release rather than at the moment I tap the pad.

PLEASE ANY ADVICE?

 

[traqstyle]

Buffer size

you might want to check your buffer size, make it smaller, but watch out, go smaller than what your machine can handle, you'll run into another set of trouble.

good luck

 

[AEnimic]

Thank you for your suggestion. I may need more help on this, just gathering different solutions and trying them out one by one.

 

[junkiemanxl]

at 3GB of ram, although its quite a good amount of ram but latency issues can happen if you have too many software or VST's running all at once. Vista alone needs quite a large amount of RAM to run well. try this, it might work for you.

1. reduce buffer size.
2. try not to open too many VST's at a go. if possible, only what you need.
3. track bit rate can affect your station's speed and cause latency issues. higher bit rate is not always better.
4. try a different USB port if you are using one to connect to your midi device
5. If you are using vista, it "might" be because 3 GB of ram is not enough to power all the apps used for your recording. some upgrade of ram could solve it.

hope it works out for u

 

[Cheez]

What audio interface are you using? Are you using ASIO drivers? These are the main things that affects latency. Limited RAM usually limits the number of simultaneous plugins you can use. Once it peaks, it goes into unusual behavior - not necessary latency.

And which VSTi are you using?

 

[squarehero]

Try to turn off some non-music background processes. What I do is dual boot my computer. One for music and one for normal use.

 

[AEnimic]

I'm using Reason 4 and Ableton 6.0.9 and sometimes Gearbox. Soundcard is through UX1. I hope this is what you mean by VSTi, cause I'm very new to this electronic home studio thing. Thanks for the response too!

Edit: If you mean that I have other programmes that might cause the lag, that's quite unusual, cause when I record my guitar, there is no latency. Hmm. HELP!

 

[Cheez]

Make sure that the driver selected is ASIO, not MME. Settings should be in your Reason or Ableton.

 

[AEnimic]

Thanks, I will check on that. Mind telling me what're the differences between ASIO and MME?

 

[Cheez]

MME (Multimedia Extension) is an audio driver developed by Microsoft, just like WDM (Windows Driver Model). ASIO (Audio Stream Input/Output) and ASIO2 (2nd generation ASIO) I believe is developed by Steinberg - it's a driver, but specifically a multi-channel audio transfer protocol, which is much faster than those developed by Microsoft. Their only challenge is probably WaveRT (Wave Real-time - Vista's driver) which is supposed to be faster than ASIO. But so far, only Echo audio interfaces has WaveRT drivers (as far as I know). Other audio interfaces has not jumped on board yet. I wonder why...

 

[AEnimic]

Hey it seems better now, the latency isn't that bad too. I've already closed alot of startup programs too. Certainly helped! Thanks!

 

[Cheez]

Closed startup programs??? Did you not have a dedicated boot partition to your DAW? If not, you must. The boot partition must only have music/DAW software and nothing else (no microsoft office, no games, no IE, no antivirus etc).

 

[AEnimic]

Oh, but I don't have a seperate installation file for Vista. My vista home basic came with the PC. So I can't double boot, and torrenting an OS would be very risky. Maybe I should install Windows XP on the other partition.

 

[junkiemanxl]

another thing to look out for is to disable your network connections. it does effect it to certain extent. always good to just turn on what you need for recording. backgrounds running app like anti virus and firewalls can be temp turned off. some of these apps can use up some ram (e.g norton) turn them back on when your hooked up back online.

XP can be better for you if you are not on the high side of specs on hardware. Vista can really suck ram just to run normally.

 

[AEnimic]

Thank you, yes, I'm turning off most programs when I'm recording. The latency is not there anymore, although I'm still online. I wish I had another computer though, would save alot of trouble. and also a Windows Vista CD to dual boot.

 

[logicdroid]

Make sure that the driver selected is ASIO, not MME. Settings should be in your Reason or Ableton.

Asio definitely more stable.. the way to go for pcs. MME = start pulling your hair off after 2 mins.

Latency issues,

a) small buffer size for tracking (not too small as you might get clicks and pops) 256 is a good start.

b) bigger buffer size for mixing

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1314 applys for all DAWs

R.