best possible latency with live 9 and duet 2

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
Emperor12
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best possible latency with live 9 and duet 2

Post by Emperor12 » Fri Jul 05, 2013 8:37 pm

HI all im getting crappy latency with my duet 2 and live 9.02.....44khz, lowest I can go is 164 samples...overall latency of 9.06 ms. Its hard to play anything like this....is anyone getting anything better?

Oh ya this is on a top of the line macbook pro retina.

Thanks.

rikhyray
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Re: best possible latency with live 9 and duet 2

Post by rikhyray » Sat Jul 06, 2013 8:15 pm

Tested Duet2, Echo 2 USB, Babyface with 2.2 i7 MBP late 2011, few months back. Was shocked how bad was Duet2. Echo 2 could easilly work @ 64 samples, Duet slightly worse than your results. RME was clear winner could go down to 14 samples, very stable at 32 - bought the RME.

Emperor12
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Re: best possible latency with live 9 and duet 2

Post by Emperor12 » Mon Jul 08, 2013 9:28 pm

Thats to bad....for me. Which RME?

UltimateOutsider
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Re: best possible latency with live 9 and duet 2

Post by UltimateOutsider » Mon Jul 08, 2013 11:24 pm

Emperor12 wrote:overall latency of 9.06 ms. Its hard to play anything like this....is anyone getting anything better?
Round trip latency of 9ms is almost imperceptible, and even the fastest interfaces on the market will give you 6-8ms RTL at a 128-sample buffer. If you're actually having trouble playing due to not hearing notes in sync with when you play them, I wonder if something else is going on.

I normally have my interface set to 256 samples, and my RTL is around 13ms. I don't even notice the delay when playing the keyboard, but it throws me off when singing if I monitor through the DAW. So whenever I'm recording vocals, I use my interface's zero-latency monitoring feature, and turn track monitoring OFF in Live.

Does the Duet offer any kind of direct monitoring capability?

You might also want to run through the "Driver Error Compensation" tutorial that's built into Live, but that's only a small part of the picture. I think direct monitoring will work for you if you can swing it with the Duet. Some interfaces offer direct monitoring right on the hardware, while others (MOTU and RME) offer cue mixing programs which let you configure a monitoring setup separate from your DAW.

Emperor12
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Re: best possible latency with live 9 and duet 2

Post by Emperor12 » Tue Jul 09, 2013 12:03 am

I am only speaking about playing my keyboard controller .....not even recording. That I am sure would be even worse....I am using a Oxygen 49 controller....usb....to my brand new macbook pro. The Oxygen doesn't even need drivers....mac os just has them I guess....which kind of makes me think they might not be that great....but ya when I play a note on the KB it plays almost a half beat later....its not even useable...I cant record anything from that into live....

UltimateOutsider
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Re: best possible latency with live 9 and duet 2

Post by UltimateOutsider » Tue Jul 09, 2013 12:18 am

Emperor12 wrote:I am only speaking about playing my keyboard controller .....not even recording. That I am sure would be even worse....I am using a Oxygen 49 controller....usb....to my brand new macbook pro. The Oxygen doesn't even need drivers....mac os just has them I guess....which kind of makes me think they might not be that great....but ya when I play a note on the KB it plays almost a half beat later....its not even useable...I cant record anything from that into live....
A half beat is a very severe delay (if you're running at 120 BPM, half a beat is 250ms). It's very common for MIDI controllers to use OS-provided drivers (happens on Windows too), and I'm not sure that's a problem unless the manufacturer of your controller says otherwise. Also, if that really is the size of the delay you're seeing (in the 200-250ms range), that's not a matter of raw interface latency either. The slowest interface I've ever seen, for example, was around 30ms round-trip at 256 samples. That's nowhere near half a beat.

And the stuff about direct monitoring and driver error compensation I mentioned definitely applies when triggering external hardware synths and recording vocals, but I don't know if/how it applies to softsynths.

joeyfivecents
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Re: best possible latency with live 9 and duet 2

Post by joeyfivecents » Tue Jul 09, 2013 12:40 am

This happened to me today with an apogee ONE and an apogee JAM. Unusable latency. My Saffire Pro 40 and Propellerhead Balance work fine. So I'm guessing this is an apogee problem. Good luck. Their customer support is awful. I also own an apogee GIO which sucks. I hope I can sell these pieces of crap for at least half of what I paid for them.
iMac, MacBook Pro, Live Suite, Reason, Logic Pro, Melodyne, FL Studio, iConnect Audio4+, Little Martin, ukelele, Greco gtrs, pedalboard, amps, mics .
http://www.soundcloud.com/gradynickel

rikhyray
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Re: best possible latency with live 9 and duet 2

Post by rikhyray » Tue Jul 09, 2013 10:25 am

The problem is that on top of audio latency, there is midi latency (that most of people are not aware there is such a thing) the PCI, PCMCIAs are/were the fastest, Firewire not that much better than USB but those vary a lot depending on models, manufacturers. There are some test in archives of SoundonSound where you can find exact values of midi latencies.
Once you add the 2 - audio and midi latency, you wont be surprised that it makes live playing/recording hardly possible.

thomassmith
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Re: best possible latency with live 9 and duet 2

Post by thomassmith » Tue Jul 09, 2013 10:44 am

thats beautiful. i was about to buy an apogee duet but considering the posts above I became uncertain.

Emperor12
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Re: best possible latency with live 9 and duet 2

Post by Emperor12 » Tue Jul 09, 2013 6:07 pm

I just tried again....and it seems totally fine....sooo...I don't really know what I did. Maybe a reboot of something fixed it. I wish I had an answer for you all..

thomassmith
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Re: best possible latency with live 9 and duet 2

Post by thomassmith » Tue Jul 09, 2013 6:47 pm

ohh emperor. i am now confused even better:)
so apogee duet vs RME (babyface) maybe.
again, what to choose?

rikhyray
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Re: best possible latency with live 9 and duet 2

Post by rikhyray » Tue Jul 09, 2013 8:47 pm

thomassmith wrote:ohh emperor. i am now confused even better:)
so apogee duet vs RME (babyface) maybe.
again, what to choose?
There is no real comparison, RME is another level, superior in all the aspects- more neutral sound (Apogee sounds "nicer" in some way, since it is consumer not even prosumer oriented), 1/4 of Duets latency, midi I/O, ADAT/Digital expansion option, can power condenser mics without PSU etc ,etc.
Duet could be comparable to Echo2 USB or Focusrite Forte (which I never tried) even here Echo is clear winner, more compact, inclusive adapter for mic stand, more intelligent handling of O/I. Sound, is a very personal thing, I prefer RME but know many musicians who find Echo the best of the lot, it surely has a punch.

thomassmith
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Re: best possible latency with live 9 and duet 2

Post by thomassmith » Wed Jul 10, 2013 11:41 am

So emperor could you pls provide me with the correct information upon latency and samples on your apogee duet.
In a hungarian forum all the guys tell me apogee sounds much better but RME has more features.
I would like to know the values of latency and samples of the RME (babyface or something) and Apogee duet because I want a decent sound card to make music.

rikhyray
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Re: best possible latency with live 9 and duet 2

Post by rikhyray » Wed Jul 10, 2013 4:02 pm

thomassmith wrote:So emperor could you pls provide me with the correct information upon latency and samples on your apogee duet.
In a hungarian forum all the guys tell me apogee sounds much better but RME has more features.
I would like to know the values of latency and samples of the RME (babyface or something) and Apogee duet because I want a decent sound card to make music.
The best is to compare interfaces with your own gear, software, songs etc. That is what I did, luckily having one Germany`s biggest retailer 10 minutes away from my home.
hope those might help, the man does not seem biased in any direction:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoU65r3hX_c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ur6UmY0M60
check the soundcloud files since they are superior to youtube.

thomassmith
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Re: best possible latency with live 9 and duet 2

Post by thomassmith » Thu Jul 11, 2013 4:29 pm

emperor so you would recommend it to buy apogee duet after all or I better off buying the RME?

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