Topic: Immediacy, latency, and sample rates.

Sup,

I bought Pianoteq after trying the demo for quite some time. I'm pleased with it. Although...

I do notice a near subliminal delay between my playing and hearing my piano. I don't feel this has been adequately addressed, hence my post.

I tested my gear with CEntrance's ASIO Latency Test Utility, and I get horrible numbers, 48ms. (round trip). This is while using ASIO4ALL.

My internal RealTek HD crackles with a ASIO latency lower then 12ms.

I want (hopefully) a 10-20ms round trip score. This should be outside of my perception. See reasoning here.

Some questions I'd like answers for...

I'm buying a M-Audio 2496 (Quite a popular choice) I hope to use at 96Khz sampling. Will this be sufficient to bring immediacy to my playing? My budget is $150. Should I return it?

Does anyone have a 196Khz card like an Audiotrak Prodigy HD2? What kind of scores do you get with the above utility? Is it stable?

Regardless of your equipment, how does it score with the above utility? What kind of soundcard do you use? Does your playing feel immediate? Do you gig with Pianoteq? Are you a concert pianist?

Assuming I'm running a state-of-the-art Windows computer minus audio hardware, how can I get the absolute lowest latency with Pianoteq with $150?

Thanks.
Thanks Again.

Chart with acceptable latency values for various audio

Last edited by TylerH (26-02-2009 17:24)

Re: Immediacy, latency, and sample rates.

You are using ASIO4ALL, right? If not, why not try it? It works with my Realtek onboard with 11 ms@48 kHz sample rate.

I suppose with M-Audio soundcard and its ASIO drivers you will get results probably under 10 ms, so it's a good choice.

PS: Think about getting an external soundcard such as Presonus Firebox. They have many more options usually, and have better sonic characteristics, because they are separated from the PC's motherboard. Firebox will connect only over Firewire, though (which is anyways recommended if multitracking).

Hard work and guts!

Re: Immediacy, latency, and sample rates.

TylerH wrote:

Regardless of your equipment, how does it score with the above utility? What kind of soundcard do you use? Does your playing feel immediate? Do you gig with Pianoteq? Are you a concert pianist?

No score yet, but I have an M-Audio Delta 66 (using ASIO with 256 sample buffer size), and for MIDI just the integrated MIDI port of my motherboard. My playing feels VERY immediate - absolutely no problems whatsoever - I can't tell the difference between Pianoteq and my digital piano.  Don't gig, and not a concert pianist.  Rest assured that you will be able to achieve an entirely satisfying latency.

Greg.

Last edited by skip (26-02-2009 12:54)

Re: Immediacy, latency, and sample rates.

I'm using an Emu 1820m (a fairly pro card, but reasonably cheap on Ebay).  I can set it down to 2ms (the lowest possible setting) with the v3 demo, it's perfect.

A card with a proper ASIO driver will always get you much lower latencies, but the CPU also comes into play - if it's too busy you'll get more glitches at the lowest settings.

Last edited by ReBased (28-02-2009 00:08)

Re: Immediacy, latency, and sample rates.

ReBased wrote:

I'm using an Emu 1820m (a fairly pro card, but reasonably cheap on Ebay).  I can set it down to 2ms (the lowest possible setting) with the v3 demo, it's perfect.

A card with a proper ASIO driver will always get you much lower latencies, but the CPU also comes into play - if it's too busy you'll get more glitches at the lowest settings.

I'd vote for the 1820M too (I have one).  It has some nice features; the onscreen mixer is very useful for me because I can so easily switch between headphones, speakers or piano output.

The high quality converters don't hurt either.  The reason it's cheap is that EMU had to discontinue the card because of the lead solder content which was outlawed by the EU.

But whatever one gets, it must ASIO.

Glenn

__________________________
Procrastination Week has been postponed.  Again.

Re: Immediacy, latency, and sample rates.

TylerH wrote:

Sup,
I want (hopefully) a 10-20ms round trip score. This should be outside of my perception. See reasoning here.

10-12 ms seems pretty much to me (though I know, that this is the common limit).
As I mentioned in an other thread:
Acoustic stimuli with down to 2ms time between can be recognized as different.
The thing with the delay of 30 ms (see the reason-link in TylorH's post) refers to the same signal with comes twice.

My brother is a guitar - player and he tested various modelling amps at pretty low latency of 3 ms. There was an annoying delay between the sound when his plectron hit the string and the sound from the box. Even I could notice that, standing next to him, while he played. When he connected to his real amp, this delay was gone, even with his effects board in between.

While playing piano, you have another situation. One stimulus is haptic (hitting the key with your finger) and the other stimulus is the sound.
I'm pretty content with a latency of 3 ms for playing piano.
6 ms already seem a little indirect to me.

You shouldn't handle scientific theories too acritical when referring them on yourself. In some ways they are too general, in other ways too specific and sometimes just wrong and are waiting for to be falsified and/or enhanced.
Perception is such a complex thing (I did some study on 'musical cognition'), that you can`t really tell, what the effect of a modification in stimulus such as latency is. Most test settings for scientific research refer to the conscience, because the operation principles of the deeper brain is more complex than we can understand today. However you have to know, that most of our perception works unconscious.

Be critical and trust your own perception and - more than scientific theories - your feeling.


To keep latency as low as possible, I warmly recommend apple notebooks above any windows pc. They have better drivers next to many other advantages.

Re: Immediacy, latency, and sample rates.

Update:

I got my card and set it up. The best settings I can get with an M-Audio Audiophile 2496 is 128 samples at 41.1Khz (2.9ms). I did try 48Khz, and beyond, this is the fastest speed without pops and clicks.

I get around 6ms (round trip time) with that Centrance utility.

To see how this compared with the onboard sounds my Roland XV-88 can spit out, I plugged the roland directly into the input left channel, and hooked the pianoteq output from the right channel, loopbacked into the input on the right channel.

Left ->  sample input the controller.
right -> pianoteq input.

Next, I opened Sony Soundforge, and played a few notes, to see when the waveforms started compared to each other.

About a 200 sample distance (3ms) just like the ASIO driver predicted.

I don't feel such a painful delay anymore, so I guess its okay. I found adjusting Pianoteq presets goes a long way towards helping the feeling of immediacy. I'll need more experience playing acoustics and my digital to get a real feeling for this new latency.

Still want folks that gig to speak up.

Re: Immediacy, latency, and sample rates.

TylerH wrote:

About a 200 sample distance (3ms) just like the ASIO driver predicted.

3 ms is cool - as cross-posted here http://www.forum-pianoteq.com/viewtopi...3663#p3663

Re: Immediacy, latency, and sample rates.

TylerH wrote:

Sup,

I bought Pianoteq after trying the demo for quite some time. I'm pleased with it. Although...

I do notice a near subliminal delay between my playing and hearing my piano. I don't feel this has been adequately addressed, hence my post.

I tested my gear with CEntrance's ASIO Latency Test Utility, and I get horrible numbers, 48ms. (round trip). This is while using ASIO4ALL.

My internal RealTek HD crackles with a ASIO latency lower then 12ms.

I want (hopefully) a 10-20ms round trip score. This should be outside of my perception. See reasoning here.

Some questions I'd like answers for...

I'm buying a M-Audio 2496 (Quite a popular choice) I hope to use at 96Khz sampling. Will this be sufficient to bring immediacy to my playing? My budget is $150. Should I return it?

Does anyone have a 196Khz card like an Audiotrak Prodigy HD2? What kind of scores do you get with the above utility? Is it stable?

Regardless of your equipment, how does it score with the above utility? What kind of soundcard do you use? Does your playing feel immediate? Do you gig with Pianoteq? Are you a concert pianist?

Assuming I'm running a state-of-the-art Windows computer minus audio hardware, how can I get the absolute lowest latency with Pianoteq with $150?

Thanks.
Thanks Again.

Chart with acceptable latency values for various audio

that should be fine I owned one awhile back (2496) another option is firewire cards I just saw a deal e-mu 1820 at $199.00 this includes the pci card . As far as the other cards . well its for listening to audio not designed for the musician in simple terms it good for grandpa

Re: Immediacy, latency, and sample rates.

ranger wrote:

that should be fine I owned one awhile back (2496) another option is firewire cards I just saw a deal e-mu 1820 at $199.00 this includes the pci card . As far as the other cards . well its for listening to audio not designed for the musician in simple terms it good for grandpa

The EMU 1820M isn't a fire wire card, and it likely has more features than most people can use or figure out.  I doubt that there is another card made that has the converter quality for that price.

G

__________________________
Procrastination Week has been postponed.  Again.

Re: Immediacy, latency, and sample rates.

I use Novation X-Station (USB)
I can go down to 48 samples (lowest) and play 128 notes on my dell laptop without any crackles at all !
With CEntrance's ASIO Latency Test Utility it shows latency below 2 ms
The Novation drivers must be VERY stable.

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