hello
i am using ableton live 7. have a native instruments audio kontrol external sound card. windows vista 32 bit
i am tryin to prepare a live performance with a guitar plugged in to my sound card and my keyboard into a usb port. the buffer setting of my sound card needs to be on a high setting to get clear playback. when on this high setting i have clear playback but latency on the guitar and keyboard. when i lower the latency settings on my sound card i achieve zero latency but the playback is unlistenable. it is glitchy and more than un appropriate for a live performance.
is this a problem i can solve or is my laptop not good enough. it should be good enough as its dual core and is generally a fast laptop. ableton runss soooo smoothly when my sound cards buffer settings are higher. approx. usb buffersize: 16ms audio buffersize: 64 ms.
what i change the sounds cards buffer settings to, to acheive no latency is usb buffersize: 4ms and audio buffersize: 16ms. at this setting there is no latency at all but the playback is horrible and craackly.
some help would be much appreciated. i got a gig real soon so have not much time, i am panicing.
i have also tried changing setting within ableton but with no luck
thanks to anyone taking the time to read this i will seriously be massively grateful for anyones help
peace
daniel
gig soon, urgent help much appreciated(buffersize problems)
Re: gig soon, urgent help much appreciated(buffersize problems)
freesian-
not to ruffle feathers, but if you are performing out live with an instrument (such as your guitar), i have a VERY strong opinion that you need to scrap your USB and get a solution that supports firewire. i have yet to come across a USB audio interface that has acceptable latency/stability that i would rely on during a gig. don't get me wrong, there are some great usb sound interfaces out there, but it seems the only solid ones are dj centric solutions.
some people will argue that USB2 is faster than 1394a and assume that it would perform the same or better. what they don't realize is that the architecture / implementation is different. i have used a shit-ton of different sound cards in different scenarios and i have yet to find one that uses usb that i would trust in a performance where i am playing instruments real time.
being a drummer, latency is a huge deal to me, and i am exceptionally sensitive/aware of it. i can work with reasonable amounts of it... i may be smoking crack, but sometimes i feel like USB2 interfaces (brands excluded) slide/fluctuate a lot.
keep me posted on what you decide to do and good luck with your gig.
not to ruffle feathers, but if you are performing out live with an instrument (such as your guitar), i have a VERY strong opinion that you need to scrap your USB and get a solution that supports firewire. i have yet to come across a USB audio interface that has acceptable latency/stability that i would rely on during a gig. don't get me wrong, there are some great usb sound interfaces out there, but it seems the only solid ones are dj centric solutions.
some people will argue that USB2 is faster than 1394a and assume that it would perform the same or better. what they don't realize is that the architecture / implementation is different. i have used a shit-ton of different sound cards in different scenarios and i have yet to find one that uses usb that i would trust in a performance where i am playing instruments real time.
being a drummer, latency is a huge deal to me, and i am exceptionally sensitive/aware of it. i can work with reasonable amounts of it... i may be smoking crack, but sometimes i feel like USB2 interfaces (brands excluded) slide/fluctuate a lot.
keep me posted on what you decide to do and good luck with your gig.
Re: gig soon, urgent help much appreciated(buffersize problems)
do u mean that because my sound card is going into my computer through usb its never going to be a good realtime performer.
my sound card was quite expensive, its the native instruments audio kontrol 1, im sure u have heard of it. i bought it thinking it was going to be good for everything but you are saying its not built for this kind of realtime performance???
thats bad newss!!! i got less than a month and no money .
what would be ideal then for what i am trying to do. a firewire external sound card?????
thanks for your help man, i am grateful :0)
peace
daniel
my sound card was quite expensive, its the native instruments audio kontrol 1, im sure u have heard of it. i bought it thinking it was going to be good for everything but you are saying its not built for this kind of realtime performance???
thats bad newss!!! i got less than a month and no money .
what would be ideal then for what i am trying to do. a firewire external sound card?????
thanks for your help man, i am grateful :0)
peace
daniel
Re: gig soon, urgent help much appreciated(buffersize problems)
hey daniel-
don't let my opinion discourage you. I'm just speaking from my past experiences. several of my songwriter friends have similar units and have yet to come across one that i would feel comfortable using in a live setting (excluding dj scenarios) its easy to adjust to latency, as long as the latency is consistent
ask yourself a few questions
1) what if the laptop crashes?
2) do you have a contingency?
3) if no contingency, would the device be able to run as a stand alone unit
be sure to stress test the shit out of your setup
be sure you have a contingency in place!
don't let my opinion discourage you. I'm just speaking from my past experiences. several of my songwriter friends have similar units and have yet to come across one that i would feel comfortable using in a live setting (excluding dj scenarios) its easy to adjust to latency, as long as the latency is consistent
ask yourself a few questions
1) what if the laptop crashes?
2) do you have a contingency?
3) if no contingency, would the device be able to run as a stand alone unit
be sure to stress test the shit out of your setup
be sure you have a contingency in place!
Re: gig soon, urgent help much appreciated(buffersize problems)
my sound card can get rid of all the latency so there is no delay on both the guitar and the keyboard. the problem being is that the playback quality is comprimised. some people have suggested that perhaps the computer isnt powerful enough but i know it is.
what u have said is a much more realistic answer to my problem.
do u think if i was to buy a firewire external sound card then this problem would cease to exist/
at the moment i have no contingency because i cant get clear playback at the same time as zero latnecy. so i can either get clear playback and loads of latency(too much) or glitchy unlistnable playback and zero latency.
will i be able to achieve zero latency on both guitar and keyboard and also clear unfaulty playback whilst doing stuff on ableton if i had a firewire external sound card. if so do u have any suggestions for a good one that i could buy?????
dont think u have discouraged me. what u have really done is enlightened me to the root of this problem i have had for ages and not been able to fix. so thanks.
peace
daniel
what u have said is a much more realistic answer to my problem.
do u think if i was to buy a firewire external sound card then this problem would cease to exist/
at the moment i have no contingency because i cant get clear playback at the same time as zero latnecy. so i can either get clear playback and loads of latency(too much) or glitchy unlistnable playback and zero latency.
will i be able to achieve zero latency on both guitar and keyboard and also clear unfaulty playback whilst doing stuff on ableton if i had a firewire external sound card. if so do u have any suggestions for a good one that i could buy?????
dont think u have discouraged me. what u have really done is enlightened me to the root of this problem i have had for ages and not been able to fix. so thanks.
peace
daniel
Re: gig soon, urgent help much appreciated(buffersize problems)
yo daniel-
go thru the ableton tutorials on setting up audio. they ARE essential and VERY HELPFUL.
yeah, ultimately i am a fanboy for firewire or PCI cards for audio. USB is fine and dandy for midi or whatever, i just prefer to keep my audio channels off of it at all possible. ESPECIALLY if i am in a windows environment.
working on a project and last night i stress tested the set up with some other musicians. the guy originally did his song in 44.1, so i switched to that (i usually use 96). I adjusted the buffer to a semi-conservative setting and reported the latency at 6.23 ms and as everyone seemed very very comfortable. i only had time to test one of our interfaces, which happened to be a motu traveler. i believe we had 6 inputs going in and about 5 going out. the project file we had open had 50 something tracks (some deactivated) and we had no problems at all playing along. everything was smooth, minus my chops!
Here's something I just thought of that you can try... noodle around with your sample rate settings. the website for your interface claims it can record handle to 192k (which might be overkill in a live scenario) I am assuming you are using 44.1k. try changing it 96k, (its my personal preference) and see if the latency decreases without you adjusting the buffer. then do the whole testing thing that the tutorial shows you how to do.
it's weird because i personally seem to get better results (i.e. low latency + non-glitched playback) at 96k instead of 44 or 48. i'm sure someone out there reading this would love to argue about the validity of what i am saying, like it wouldn't make sense because it would take more processing power, etc... i'm not going to go there because i am more interested in making music than geeking out.
hold up i just thought about something... you're on windows right? what about ASIO? you're using the asio drivers right? does directsound still exist? anyway, there are alternate asio drivers out there, if i recall one is called asio4all. i am out of the loop on this and not sure if that is what is hip. anyway,
once again, i'm (hyper)sensitive to latency/timing etc. 64ms would be probably way too much for me to accept in a live scenario. Tracking to a prerecorded track is no biggie (with close ear headphones), but it would probably require me to be exceptionally drunk or out of mind to pull it off live
It sounds like your computer should be sufficient for doing what you want to do, maybe you could go to a store that carries sound equipment and test out a few other systems. don't listen to what reviews say about the units, or me for that matter. however, do you (active) research ahead of time and visit the manufacturers websites for the units you are interested in and install the barebone drivers ahead of time. take your existing unit with and then when you go to the store, test out a few of the interfaces. find some money and try before you buy. either your salesperson will love you or hate you depending on how cool they are. if you ask me its a win win situation because you both get to learn the quirkiness and suckiness of whats out there. then write me a report 3000 words or less (ha ha ha)
if you end up testing out some, see if you can get your hands on a motu ultralite hybrid. it has both firewire and usb2 ports, and is similar to what you are using. in theory this unit would be able act as a contingency if the computer crashes, because it has some onboard dsp action you could use the reverb, etc, as a backup. there are other units out there i'm sure that are 'better' or whatever, i am only familar with that one because i have a traveler and a 828mkII and needed drivers from the site.
like i said usb2 is spec'd faster that firewire 400, but the bus architecture is different. i would love to personally see it in action. someone out there besides me probably has more experience with this kind of setup so i am going to shut up now.
i'll be interested to hear your progress and what you decide to end up doing/attacking your situation.
let me know,
jda
go thru the ableton tutorials on setting up audio. they ARE essential and VERY HELPFUL.
yeah, ultimately i am a fanboy for firewire or PCI cards for audio. USB is fine and dandy for midi or whatever, i just prefer to keep my audio channels off of it at all possible. ESPECIALLY if i am in a windows environment.
working on a project and last night i stress tested the set up with some other musicians. the guy originally did his song in 44.1, so i switched to that (i usually use 96). I adjusted the buffer to a semi-conservative setting and reported the latency at 6.23 ms and as everyone seemed very very comfortable. i only had time to test one of our interfaces, which happened to be a motu traveler. i believe we had 6 inputs going in and about 5 going out. the project file we had open had 50 something tracks (some deactivated) and we had no problems at all playing along. everything was smooth, minus my chops!
Here's something I just thought of that you can try... noodle around with your sample rate settings. the website for your interface claims it can record handle to 192k (which might be overkill in a live scenario) I am assuming you are using 44.1k. try changing it 96k, (its my personal preference) and see if the latency decreases without you adjusting the buffer. then do the whole testing thing that the tutorial shows you how to do.
it's weird because i personally seem to get better results (i.e. low latency + non-glitched playback) at 96k instead of 44 or 48. i'm sure someone out there reading this would love to argue about the validity of what i am saying, like it wouldn't make sense because it would take more processing power, etc... i'm not going to go there because i am more interested in making music than geeking out.
hold up i just thought about something... you're on windows right? what about ASIO? you're using the asio drivers right? does directsound still exist? anyway, there are alternate asio drivers out there, if i recall one is called asio4all. i am out of the loop on this and not sure if that is what is hip. anyway,
once again, i'm (hyper)sensitive to latency/timing etc. 64ms would be probably way too much for me to accept in a live scenario. Tracking to a prerecorded track is no biggie (with close ear headphones), but it would probably require me to be exceptionally drunk or out of mind to pull it off live
It sounds like your computer should be sufficient for doing what you want to do, maybe you could go to a store that carries sound equipment and test out a few other systems. don't listen to what reviews say about the units, or me for that matter. however, do you (active) research ahead of time and visit the manufacturers websites for the units you are interested in and install the barebone drivers ahead of time. take your existing unit with and then when you go to the store, test out a few of the interfaces. find some money and try before you buy. either your salesperson will love you or hate you depending on how cool they are. if you ask me its a win win situation because you both get to learn the quirkiness and suckiness of whats out there. then write me a report 3000 words or less (ha ha ha)
if you end up testing out some, see if you can get your hands on a motu ultralite hybrid. it has both firewire and usb2 ports, and is similar to what you are using. in theory this unit would be able act as a contingency if the computer crashes, because it has some onboard dsp action you could use the reverb, etc, as a backup. there are other units out there i'm sure that are 'better' or whatever, i am only familar with that one because i have a traveler and a 828mkII and needed drivers from the site.
like i said usb2 is spec'd faster that firewire 400, but the bus architecture is different. i would love to personally see it in action. someone out there besides me probably has more experience with this kind of setup so i am going to shut up now.
i'll be interested to hear your progress and what you decide to end up doing/attacking your situation.
let me know,
jda