Firebox : Lower latency

ethios4 · Post by **ethios4** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 5:53 pm

I've always been a bit disappointed by the latency on my Firebox. It always seemed higher than other firewire interfaces. Just last week I discovered that the Firebox control panel icon (the one that gives you latency settings) can be right-clicked on, and you can choose CPU > high, medium, or low. When I changed the setting to High, I now get much lower latency!

nebulae · Post by **nebulae** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 6:55 pm

how low?

glitchrock-buddha · Post by **glitchrock-buddha** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 7:52 pm

and at what cost to cpu?

kristoffer1989 · Post by **kristoffer1989** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 10:15 pm

can you do thi on a mac?

dru · Post by **dru** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 5:55 am

Interesting.. gonna try it now..

kaffein · Post by **kaffein** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 9:11 am

Never seen "high, medium, or low" options for latency as long as I've had it.

There are options to set it in a range from 2ms to 40ms however.

liveISlife · Post by **liveISlife** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 10:24 am

i dont think mac has this. but my firebox has been sucking ass. if im playing a track in live and then i go to look and play a track in itunes in stutters and shit. this happen to anyone else? i was thinking about getting the apogee duet. will this work better?

SubFunk · Post by **SubFunk** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 2:13 pm

liveISlife wrote:i dont think mac has this. but my firebox has been sucking ass. if im playing a track in live and then i go to look and play a track in itunes in stutters and shit. this happen to anyone else? i was thinking about getting the apogee duet. will this work better?

no probs using a firebox under logic, live, peak with 64 samples... no crackles or what.
can go even down to 32 if i wanted with a little more CPU Strain...

and with traktor 2.5ms, can even use 1ms if i wanted.

cd2 2.16ghz OSX 10:4:11

i don't understand latency problems??? use(d) a few other cards a s well, a scratchamp2 for example and a ultralite, fireface 400, terratec producer, etc. etc.never had problems to go at least down to 128 samples with not to high CPU strain...

it feels like you guys with latency issues do something wrong.

jeez, i did got those results even with my old 466MHZ G4...

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YOU MUST DO SOMETHING WRONG?!?!?!?

dancerchris · Post by **dancerchris** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 9:26 pm

I have a firepod and it is the same basic driver. I really dislike that Presonus didn't directly address the number of samples in the buffer. They did this silly latency and CPU setting which really doesn't relate to anything "real". I had one of the first implimentations of a Core 2 Duo (in other words a hottie processor) with the current driver I am using and the driver settings that work best with me (then and now) is Medim CPU with 4ms latency (@44.1 khz). This is actually a buffer size of 176 split up between input and output according to the drivers internal logic.? The driver error compensation is at 87 samples. You have far better control over these with ASIO4ALL but I get lower latencies with the native driver. This results in an input latency = 5.62, output latency = 9.5, and an error compensation of 87 samples. this results in a round trip latency of 17.1 ms. Bigger than I would like (< 10 ms). Some people focus on the input latency but it is really dependent on what you use Live for. I am doing recording and mixing of live and midi material. If I have several audio tracks and a few midi tracks (one of which would be Jamstix running Superior 2) then I need these levels of latency. I imagine using live to do DJ stuff wouldn't be as demanding. I can launch clips without dropouts at much lower latency levels.

My $0.02

dru · Post by **dru** » Sun Nov 09, 2008 12:37 am

SubFunk wrote:
liveISlife wrote:i dont think mac has this. but my firebox has been sucking ass. if im playing a track in live and then i go to look and play a track in itunes in stutters and shit. this happen to anyone else? i was thinking about getting the apogee duet. will this work better?
no probs using a firebox under logic, live, peak with 64 samples... no crackles or what.
can go even down to 32 if i wanted with a little more CPU Strain...

and with traktor 2.5ms, can even use 1ms if i wanted.

cd2 2.16ghz OSX 10:4:11

i don't understand latency problems??? use(d) a few other cards a s well, a scratchamp2 for example and a ultralite, fireface 400, terratec producer, etc. etc.never had problems to go at least down to 128 samples with not to high CPU strain...

it feels like you guys with latency issues do something wrong.

jeez, i did got those results even with my old 466MHZ G4...

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YOU MUST DO SOMETHING WRONG?!?!?!?

Live @ 64 samples? What happens when you crank the CPU usage up to 80% in Preferences?

Landwhale · Post by **Landwhale** » Sun Nov 09, 2008 2:27 am

I too am confused about all the latency issues people have, especially with modern computers.

I use a 2.4ghz MBP w/ 4gb of ram and a Motu Ultralite, I run Live 6 on Leopard at 64 samples all the time without issues. I was able to do the same on my macbook 2.0ghz C2D w/ 3gb of ram as well.

Of course, if I put the Live built-in CPU test to 80% it glitches, but it doesn't start glitching until 73%. I guess I just don't run enough CPU intense plugins to have problems?

duluxdog · Post by **duluxdog** » Sun Nov 09, 2008 10:29 am

It seems like Wi-fi causes a lot of latency issues for people. It caused a bad latency problem when I was running a Win XP machine, and now i'm on Mac I still get this. However, the problem is easily resolved by simply disabling the Wireless feature. On Mac you just right right click on the airport indicator and click 'Turn Airport off'.

I have a little problem with Live 'lagging' a little bit when i'm doing tasks like moving an instance of DrumRack out of my library and onto a track - maybe I can solve this with more Ram? - but no latency problem with playing audio so far. I am using a Macbook Pro 2.5ghz with 2gb Ram and Firebox.

SubFunk · Post by **SubFunk** » Sun Nov 09, 2008 9:24 pm

dru wrote:
SubFunk wrote:
liveISlife wrote:i dont think mac has this. but my firebox has been sucking ass. if im playing a track in live and then i go to look and play a track in itunes in stutters and shit. this happen to anyone else? i was thinking about getting the apogee duet. will this work better?
no probs using a firebox under logic, live, peak with 64 samples... no crackles or what.
can go even down to 32 if i wanted with a little more CPU Strain...

and with traktor 2.5ms, can even use 1ms if i wanted.

cd2 2.16ghz OSX 10:4:11

i don't understand latency problems??? use(d) a few other cards a s well, a scratchamp2 for example and a ultralite, fireface 400, terratec producer, etc. etc.never had problems to go at least down to 128 samples with not to high CPU strain...

it feels like you guys with latency issues do something wrong.

jeez, i did got those results even with my old 466MHZ G4...

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YOU MUST DO SOMETHING WRONG?!?!?!?
Live @ 64 samples? What happens when you crank the CPU usage up to 80% in Preferences?

??? i don't know, never went so high in Lives CPU usage, and i never tested it.
what the hell you have to run on plugs being either shity cpu hogs or not needed...???

sorry not mean to be an ass, but i really don't get how much stuff you need to run with a fast machine like a over 2ghz c2d... to make that happen... ?????????????

fill me in, please.

unless it is like in a few cases i have seen, that people stick a dozen of sound shaping plugs per channel on ........

, because they believe they need that. without knowing that you can achieve the same sound with much less or sometimes even no plugs at all (depending if it is a sample they like to tweak or a softsynth)

p.s running a mbp 2.16ghz c2d with 4gb of ram osx 10.4.11
and for live performances i use a scratchamp2
at home a firebox and in the studio a motu v4hd, at time being.

ethios4 · Post by **ethios4** » Tue Nov 11, 2008 3:06 pm

Sorry I haven't gotten back to this....I haven't had my guitar around to do anymore testing.

I really wish you could just set latency in samples with the Firebox, instead of their preset latency options. I have it set to 3 ms right now, which ends up being something like 5ms in practice. Not as good as an RME, but good enough for live playing.

SubFunk · Post by **SubFunk** » Tue Nov 11, 2008 5:45 pm

Hm... ??? Do I missunderstand you? Or is it a PC thing, I do my latency settings within my apps in samples... There is no setting like low, middle, high in my firebox utility... I am confused...