help with MIDI lag?

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da_ab
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2021 7:11 pm

help with MIDI lag?

Post by da_ab » Mon May 16, 2022 2:36 pm

I’m borrowing a friend’s Push 2 because I wanted to try sequencing a bunch of hardware synths. Keep in mind that all the synths in the setup are running directly into a mixer so no audio from the computer itself is involved.

What I’ve found is that there is latency with the midi signal when I’m trying to play notes on the Push 2 controller (or the piano roll in Live). When I press a key, there is a noticeable delay before it plays.

The setup is pretty simple: MIDI goes from the computer to an Arturia Keystep via USB and then via MIDI DIN cables through a chain of instruments.

When I try playing notes on the Keystep to trigger other synths, there is no latency, but any MIDI notes originating from the computer seem to have a lag.

I didn’t think that there’d be any latency associated with pure MIDI information. Wondering if anyone can help me figure out how to remove this latency. Again… no audio being used on the computer… just purely MIDI into an all hardware synth setup. Thanks!

chapelier fou
Posts: 6003
Joined: Mon May 15, 2006 12:15 pm

Re: help with MIDI lag?

Post by chapelier fou » Tue May 17, 2022 12:51 am

If you’re chaining instruments with MIDI thru, you must now that every instrument will introduce a delay, and this can be quite important in the end of the chain. Could it be the reason ?
If so, you should consider using a thru box.
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