Re: Laptops and Latency...

[Charles Zwicky <cazwicky@earthlink.net>]

Latency is a very serious issue with both laptops and hardware 
loopers. I had to modify my Electro-Harmonix 16 second delay re-issue 
so that the "Dry" signal path was only passing through the analog 
circuitry, the latency was just maddening... The Electrix Repeater 
has a tremendous amount of latency in the "Dry Path",  so I built a 
little mixer to pass the input signal and every time I power up the 
Repeater, I need to remember to press the key combination which mutes 
the dry signal path.

I know that there are a number of interfaces which allow direct 
monitoring for zero latency, such as the Tascam 122, but if you 
expect to use anything in the computer to process the 'dry' signal, 
you will experience latency...




>The lovely Jeff said about working with MAX/MSP on a laptop -
>>>still loving it, and latency not bothering me at all. Particularly 
>>>since leaving the m-audio interface behind.....<<
>
>one of the major differences between your music and mine is that 
>your sound source is acoustic - so your relationship with latency is 
>going to be very different in that you're already dealing with two 
>separate sounds - the acoustic one and the processed one. A 7-10 
>millisecond latency on that is going to be pretty hard to pick up, 
>I'd have thought...
>
>For me as a bassist, especially when playing percussively, I find 
>the disconnect that I feel when presented with that kind of latency 
>is just nasty. I could deal with it if I was using the direct 
>monitoring thing through the soundcard, but that would then mean 
>that I'd need an external processor as well, and would defeat the 
>point of using a laptop. :o)
>
>We're talking about tiny tiny latency margins here, and loads of 
>people are going to find that they don't notice them at all. For 
>those peoples, a laptop is a cool way to go, if they don't mind 
>having a laptop on stage etc.
>
>Gimme hardware any day of the week. Now if there was a hardware box 
>that'd run Max/MSP with the kind of undetectable latency that the 
>Looperlative is running (I think Bob said something silly like 0.3 
>of a millisecond - and someone else said it was less than the time 
>it takes for an acoustic guitar signal to reach the ear of the 
>player... Don't quote me on that though... ;o)
>
>cheers!
>
>Steve
>www.stevelawson.net - site
>www.stevelawson.net/store/ - shop
>http://steve.anthropiccollective.org - blog
>www.myspace.com/solobasstevelawson


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