Laptop good enough for Pianoteq?

Hi dnv!

My audio interface is the same as yours, Presonus Firepod, and everything is running smoothly, using the Firepod ASIO drivers. So if you're experiencing clicking noises, try raising the latency if you have it set very low. I'm using a latency of 10 ms, which is high enough to give the computer some elbow room, but still low enough to not affect my playing.

Try using 48 kHz samplerate. It is probably the soundcard's native frequency and it will work better.

I tried setting the samplerate to 48 kHz. Then I disable the wifi adapter (with a hardware switch). I also downloaded the DPC Latency Test which says "This machine should be able to handle real-time streaming of audio and/or video data without drop-outs."

But there are still problems with clicks or something else I cannot describe well with language. Would it help if I record such a problematic sound and upload it anywhere?

As the Firepod ASIO driver has only some choices for the buffer size (no multiples of 64) I moved back to the ASIO4ALL driver to chose a buffer size of 320 samples. By now I couldn´t hear any more clicking noise, but there where some lags what I don´t like :-/

I also switched to C3 Binaural. But this should not be the solution!? I think my machine should be able to work good with pianoteq.

I was also thinking about creating a clean system only for pianoteq use. This could probably be a bootable CD without a real installation on a hard drive.

I have a Delock Firewire Card, probably a very cheap one. Can you recommend a good one to me?

Maybe this one? http://www.amazon.de/Express-Card-Schni...rhf_shvl_4
It has the chipset Texas Instruments TI XIO2200.

firstly, have you optimised your computer for performance in 'control panel - system - advanced system settings - performance settings - adjust for best performance'

If not, do that first.

Then, if you still have clicking noises, I suggest that you adjust the internal sample rate in the performance section of the options in pianoteq.

Adjusting the above settings has enabled me to run pianoteq flawlessly while running the internet with windows messenger and playing pianoteq live over messenger!

I have the same prossessor as you and it should work for you also.

10 ms is fine enough latency.

Of course, 6 or 4 would be better, but consider that you can play decently with even 20 ms or so.

Hi Glenn,

I think it´s a difference if you hear your own instrument or the instrument played by others, because you know the moves of your hand but the sound comes later. I showed pianoteq to a "real pianist", someone who mostly plays on a grand piano. He was amazed by the sound, especially compared with other digital pianos. But he noticed right at the beginning that there was a delay. After he player some minutes on it he stopped thinking about that and could play as he was used to :-)

You have the same "problem" with some church organs where there is a heavy latency. But I think on organs this is well known and you have to accept it, but on a real piano you don´t have these latencies (yes, you have, but very little) and as pianoteq wants to be a replacement for real pianos this is a problem.

So this latency-thing is making you feel not to sit on a real piano, but the sound tries exactly this. I would also like to introduce pianoteq in a band where I play double bass. But the pianist there has to be convinced that it is better than the digital piano sound he uses now. And a feeled delay is something not so nice here.

One solution to this could be Zero Latency Monitoring: The pianist gets the sound of the digital piano into his headphones and the audience gets the pianoteq sound. But this is not optimal.

At the end: What latency values does you pianoteq installation have?

So you get a latency of less than 2ms?

I didn´t mean which values you can choose but which are working properly.

My system consists of:

Asus A8V-SE mobo
AMD 64 x 2 dual core running at 2200MHz
2 GB ram
EMU 1820M soundcard

(note that this system is about six years old and is no longer top of the line).

I'm using a buffer size of 320 samples with a latency of 7.3 ms (which doesn't seem too troublesome to me).  This setting is for playing other people's midi files where the polyphony often hits into the 80's or higher and with four microphones.  But I still get some crackles.

If I use two mics, or a binaural setting, I get no crackles at all.

More microphones = more horsepower required = more latency required.

For my own amateur playing, I can use four or five mics with no crackles, or I could set the latency less.  But I usually play with headphones, so I use a binaural setting (which I find gives a very close and immediate sound - which I like).

A comment I've made on other threads is that it's recommended by Niclas Fogwall of Pianoteq to use a multiple of 64 for the buffer size.  Niclas's advice certainly helped me.

Glenn

One thing I would recommend is try using older versions of ASIO4ALL. I always found versions 2.6 and 2.7 to be the most stable. Some computers I setup would be very unresponsive and crackly on later versions depending on the combination of the soundcard, motherboard etc.

Direct links to the older versions are:

2.6: http://tippach.business.t-online.de/asi...Av2Ins.exe

and

2.7: http://tippach.business.t-online.de/asi...nglish.exe

As found on http://tippach.business.t-online.de/asi...story.html

Now I tried again to run PTQ on my Thinkpad Tablet PC X41t (Pentium M 778 at 1.6GHz, 2GB RAM) under Windows XP Tablet PC Edition and it runs smooth with my Firepod and a latency of 4ms (176 samples).

I´m happy that I can use the tablet for it :-)