Using a Macbook & Live as your Guitar effects rig...?

[veggieryan]

Cool, you know your shit!!

Unusable is a very strong word. 7.5mS is not unusable, with a few day's practice you get over it. It's the same as standing 7.5 feet from your amp, which I'm sure you're usually in that range.

PCI will always be faster, it's sitting ON the bus.

Any word on USB? Do you know how many sample it introduces?

This is a GREAT post in latency, it's stickied in the TnT forum...

yeah, that arguement is brought up all the time. BUT.. you dont sing 7.5 feet from your head. when you play drums, they arent 7.5 feet from your head. when you play acoustic guitar, it isnt 7.5 feet from your head.

if you play electric guitar then amp is usually closer than 7.5 feet, AND if you play with 7.5 ms latency and the guitar amp is 7.5 feet away, it SOUNDS like its 15 feet away.

all this adds up. less latency is always better period.
recording is different than playing live.
trying to play syncopated rhythms through 7.5ms latency is frustrating at best.

[Tone Deft]

Meh, I think you're just being a hater. We agree to disagree? Unplayable is not the word to use. I got amplitube for Xmas (with the Stealth plug) and just got back into using the PC for FX. The very first strum I could feel it, a few hours later I got over it and just played. I don't think my latency is down to 8ms, I'll check later.

Of course I've been playing with far more than 7.5mS for a decade, I'm kinda into that whole midi thing. When I had a Mesa DC-10 it was loud as fuck and I stood at least a body's length away from it, even on stage the pros are usually a body length away from their PA.

If anything, there's no need to scare the kid and tell him guitar FX via USB or firewire are unplayable, that's totally bad advice. There are great options for guitar FX in the computer, he should check it out, lots of cool toys.

Oh, and if it hasn't been pointed out yet, you end up recording a DRY tone with FX over it, so when you record into Live you can change your guitar effects to anything at any time.

[Winterpark]

... firewire and usb will introduce unusable latency. period.
.

i use trash, and a motu traveler (firewire)... can get a buffer size as low as 45 samples when i'm at 44100...

here we go again. try a search.
firewire ALWAYS introduces 64 ADDITIONAL samples.
NO MATTER WHAT. that is FACT. google it.
motu just happens to dishonestly MISREPORT the ACTUAL latency in the driver settings dialog to make you THINK its lower than it ACTUALLY IS IN REALITY. RME does this on the fireface as well. probably to cut down on the complaints to support entitled "why is my firewire interface's latency twice the latency of my pci interface?"

so, your 48 samples is really 48+64=112 samples which is about 7.5ms latency versus the 4ms you would get on pcmcia. thats pretty much double the latency. now pick up your mic and some headphones and sing through it monitoring through the computer, not the soundcards internal mixer called "zero-latency" or "direct monitoring" which bypasses the computer.

this is how you would monitor through vst or au fx.. but for this test leave it dry.

hear the slight echo? thats what 7.5ms sounds like. it drives vocalist, guitarist and drummers nuts.

add a midi drum pad in the mix and you get even more terrible firewire latency on the midi side + the 7.5ms on the audio side. its not usuable.

furthermore although its a higher latency than it would be on pci/pcmcia, it comes at a higher cpu cost, meaning you cpu maxes out sooner.
you also get dropouts sooner because firewire has no direct access to DMA. this means the with a 24 channel pcmcia/pci device, the first dropouts only happen on the last channel.. channel 24.. channels 1-23 keep on playing perfectly.
on firwire ALL the channels will dropout together.

firewire and usb devices may work fine for amateurs but that doesnt change the facts.

if you want to MONITOR THROUGH the computer and use fx like guitar rig then you will want to run at 64 samples and you will need pcmcia/pci.

make excuses, tell me you cant tell the difference, it doesnt change the facts.

ok cool. I did you test, despite (or perhaps to spite) your condescending tone, and now i can hear what 7.5 ms sounds like.

thanks to your technological wisdom, my 'amateur' music will be sounding all that much better... not.

jeez.

[acibahia]

How to switch presets in AMPLITUBE? I mean not by scrolling the preset inside the plugin but midi assign a command to a controller and have like 10 presets ready for a gig.. thanks a lot

[OvertoneZero]

I realize that this is extremely expensive and total overkill for an electric guitar DI into amp modeler, but the Apogee Symphony Mobile system will be available soon which will allow extremely low latency via Expresscard. This solution has a wide range of utility beyond guitar DI. Just throwing that out there.

All in all, a PC laptop with the Emu card seems like the most sensible way to go and would cost thousands less than any truly equivalent Mac-based solution. If it works right. ; ) You could also consider an Echo I/O card for a very portable solution. I don't think it would be wise to bet the bank on a given PC card interface working correctly with upcoming PC card -> Expresscard adapters. I'm a gambler though.

Here's a link to the adapter if you're interested:

http://www.duel-systemsadapters.com/

[D K]

I would split the signal and use Live wet only then the latencies will be less relevant- except sync delays of course.

+1, this is my solution for using live to process my electric upright bass.
works great..