Hi,

Does audio interface really reduce or eliminate the latency problem in general?

I am buying one which will only be used to connect a midi keyboard with my laptop. My main concern is latency despite all settings done to their best (buffer etc).

So does it install it's own ASIO driver which you need to choose and this reduces latency? How does it work for midi keyboards?

Please reply. Thanks.

 

if you're only connecting midi as a master keyboard then asio and setting the buffer will have no effect on the midi part, you could also just buy a midi interface

 

Yes midi keyboard will be used as master but I only use virtual instruments, Kontakt mainly. It's causing this latency problem. Will midi interface help reducing the latency? The interface I am looking at is cheap but have good reviews: M-Audio Midisport 1x1 USB MIDI Interface

 

Last edited: Jan 28, 2016

An usb audio interface with with asio drivers will fix your latency issues. The lower the buffer size gets without audio glitches the lower the latency is. A good PCIe Card could get down to 32 Samples. That would be about 3ms latency (something like that). I'm know of USB devices that manage to work with 64 samples, usb architecture is less "fast" than pcie, maybe there are devices now that do less. but 64 samples is quite acceptable i'd say.

 

You need to use an ASIO driver and set it to lowest latency possible to get low latency audio. There are two solutions.

1) you need to do is install ASIO4all ASIO driver and adjust it to the lowest latency possible that gives you no crackling. Here: http://www.asio4all.com/

2) you need an audio interface like Focusrite Scarlett, or RME Babyface, or xxx that comes with its own ASIO driver to get low latency audio.

Cheers !

 

I think that 128 samples of latency is quite acceptable at 44100. For instance in Live and in Logic it corresponds to an output delay of 5.6 ms. In this time the sound covers 1.9 meters.

 

Thank you for replies guys.
@Plendix I am on laptop sadly, can't use PCIe card.
@SineWave As I said earlier, ASIO4ALL is already installed and tweaked to it's best. Even I installed FL Studio to have it's own FL ASIO4ALL but latency is still there. I am actually looking for option number 2 which is why I posted one link above. Thanks for the tips.
@angie Thank you too for the info.

 

I was running two midi keyboards on my laptop with Kontakt and other vsti's for some time just using internal soundcard and ASIO4all without latency problems. I went to a Focusrite audio interface last year so I could also use a guitar through laptop, and I couldn't be happier with their driver. A lot does depend on your laptop sound card and processor, but ASIO4all works great for most soundcards. You will just have to experiment with driver settings until you get it where you need it. An external audio interface will definitely enhance everything if you still run into problems after asio4all. There are LOTS of instructional videos on youtube about this subject. Good Luck.

 

guys pay attention, before you claim that the external soundcard will solve all his latency problems take into account that he's only using it to connect the midi keyboard and not use the audio output

 

So the problem seems to be using FL Studio driver on Studio one causing 58.98 ms . Definately not using.

ASIO4ALL 16.60 ms / 512 samples, 9.80 ms / 256 samples, 7.89 ms / 128 samples. Are these readings sound ok? What will be the difference if I use an interface?

Laptop specs: i5, 2950 GHz, 64bit, 8GB Ram.

 

Your laptop looks good. I usually use the 128 samples as long as the sound doesn't start flaking out on you. Set your laptop for app processing priority (if it lets you). Graphics should be secondary, and disable internet and virus programs. Are you using USB as midi connection, or midi cable into soundcard?

 

yeah but still the sound has to come from your pc so you'll always have the audio out latency.

 

Now that I know you're using ASIO4all ASIO driver [you *didn't* mention it in your 1st post ] and you adjusted it for the lowest possible latency, I am confused at how you find the 7ms/128 samples latency not acceptable. A proper ASIO driver can give you only a couple of ms less than that, so you will probably still find it unacceptable. I'm starting to think something else seems to be the problem. Does the audio coming from your DAW sound OK? Is the lag between you pressing the keys and hearing the sound bigger than 7ms in your opinion?

Why would you buy an audio interface only to connect a MIDI keyboard to it? Don't you need an audio interface to have proper quality audio inputs and outputs? You would connect the audio interface and then listen to the audio output from your internal soundcard? That doesn't sound right. no pun intended.

Cheers!

 

that's what i said yeah, wouldnt make sense to buy an audio interface and only hook up midi and use internal audio

dont think 7ms is even noticable

 

@SineWave I didn't really noticed that I haven't mentioned ASIO4all earlier, thought I had .
Sorry for causing any confusion bro, I am always to the point and clear. Was doing multiple tasks.

So in actual when I switch to ASIO4all driver from windows default the latency Studio One initially calculates is what I wrote which is, like you say, acceptable. But when I press any key, say after loading Kontakt, or play a track while all instruments already loaded the latency goes up --- somewhere in between 15-17ms. Thought another driver would solve this so I found FL Studio offering it's own driver. Installed it and the results were what I mentioned above. I am really a noob when it comes to how audio interfaces work. From @statik posts and your last one, I learned that audio output also require the same treatment, i.e., should be monitored through an interface. Like in ASIO4all I thought just loading up a driver comes with any interface will do both tasks (?!! ::confused:: ). I hope am clear this time Please educate me what I am missing. Thank you for your time.

Sorry statik I didn't get it from your first post as I had no idea or concept of monitoring through interface as well. I had the impression that it is only used for input latency correction. Thank you.

@westfinch Thank you for your suggestion. Yes internet is on and I have Windows Defender antivirus along with Malawarebytes. Defender is I think a very light on resources antivirus but I will switch them off next time and see how it goes.

 

Last edited: Jan 29, 2016

audio interface latency chart:

(higher number=better)

Sorry to be this blunt but everything else is just blah blah.

 

ASIO4all is an ASIO driver that you can use with any audio card. In my experience its latency performance is not so good and I would use it only if I'm forced to, but many people find it acceptable. It is nice that any laptop with any audio card can be used for low latency audio with it. Before ASIO4all we had to use DirectX or WDM drivers for audio which have anywhere from 10-100ms latency which is rather unacceptable. Only for mixing and mastering, maybe.

When you buy an audio interface it comes with its own ASIO driver for audio, and you have to use this audio interface to hear it, of course. ASIO drivers can be tricky to program so there's a difference in performance and stability between them. Since it works at a very low level - communicate with the audio interface as directly as possible circumventing various Windows driver layers, it can easily crash Windows. It is kinda well known that RME and Lynx make some of the best ASIO drivers regarding both performance and stability. I can personally vouch for RME as I'm using their PCI/PCIe audio cards in my computers and I also recommend them to my clients. The cheapest audio interface from RME that you can buy for a laptop is RME Babyface. I also recommend Focusrite interfaces since they managed to iron out all the kinks in their ASIO driver. TC Electronic has managed to do that, too.

Why you experience bigger latency than stated 7ms is a bit of mystery. My initial thought was that you didn't adjust the ASIO4all driver properly. I don't think I've ever encountered an antivirus [well, I don't use them] influencing audio latency, but it can cause crackling in audio and some other problems. I simply detest antivirus programs and other demanding background programs. Those have no place on a computer that's being used as audio or video workstation.

Well, I do recommend you to buy a proper audio interface and then see how it goes. If you're serious about your music you will not regret spending a few hundred euro/quid/$/xxx for it as it really makes a difference.

 

Last edited: Jan 29, 2016

My HP laptop is now six years old. It has Intel Core Duo with 3 Gb of RAM (not a typo, it's really three GB, 2 + 1 actually).

I run Studio One on Win 8.1 x64 with the built in crappy soundcard. As far as I can read, my latency is 40 ms with 1920 samples, out of the box, without any tweaking.

To be honest I don't feel any latency while playing with my USB keyboard... therefore I'm not sure to understand when someone isn't satisfied with +/- 10 ms of latency.

Is it actually possible to 'feel' the difference between 10 and 40 ms? between 1 and 40 ms? If no recording is needed, why bother with an external quality (and costy) soundcard in order to be near zero latency?

Thanks everyone for your insight.

EDIT:
For comparison sake, I installed the ASIO4ALL drivers and I now have 730 samples with 15 ms latency. To be honest I'm not able to feel any difference between 15 and 40 ms when playing the keys...

 

Last edited: Jan 29, 2016

I don't trust it

 

Any latency under 10ms should be acceptable.
Try the WASAPI drivers included with windows,they can work better than ASIO4All sometimes in Exclusive mode. For USB/MIDI interface, get one off ebay for about $4 US - same electronics as the ones sold for $40 in the music stores.

 

Last edited: Jan 29, 2016