[RWP] latency in reaper

Wed May 29 10:45:19 EDT 2013

Unless the latency figures shown onscreen in Reaper are not the total 
round trip from your device through the computer then back to you, but 
only part of the total latency.
The computer itself adds about a millisecond of latency, which is 
unavoidable.
I can pick up a mistiming like a hawk, and at 3 to 5 ms with the eMu 
soundcards and Reaper, an instrument under my hands; like PianoTeq; 
feels just like the real thing, and I'm not deluding myself.
I read somewhere that there's something like 1.5ms latency from a piano, 
when you're sitting at the piano bench; and hasn't anyone noticed the 
inertia the long heavy hammer mechanism inserts into the playing of a piano.
I love the feel of it myself, and believe the mechanical inertia of the 
mechanism has defined the music that comes out of the instrument.
I haven't had a lot of time with one, but I've tried a real Fender 
Rhodes, and the feel of the hammers striking the tines just sets a 
certain pace; and seems to just draw bluesy riffs out of it.
For some people, the lack of inertia and instant response of flabby 
synth keys puts them off.
In all of life, you train your mind, which is meant to be a totally 
adaptable tool.
In playing auto quantizing groove boxes, I found you need to play a tiny 
bit ahead of time, to give the relatively slow internal processing 
enough time to place the next note onto the correct 16th note marker
Drum machines only use 1/96th resolution, which is pretty crude compared 
to the 1/384 or 1/960 resolution our daws typically run at..
It only takes a little time to train your mind so you don't notice that 
you're pushing your playing  timing a few milliseconds ahead.
If you have 12ms latency from an electric guitar, you're probably 
already pushing 12ms ahead of the time, and are so used to it it doesn't 
bother you at all.
Less than 10ms is an academic issue, or a bragging issue for those with 
expensive soundcards, adapt and enjoy yourself; or, much better, why not 
spend the cash on a really great pro level soundcard.
You'll never regret it.

Indi

On 5/29/2013 4:37 AM, Colin McDonald wrote:
> in a room at 20 degrees C with low humidity, sound will travel at 1.125
> feet per MS.  So yes, if you are ten feet away from the speakers it'll
> take around 11.25MS to reach you.
> So, with that in mind, I know exactly how a guitar cabinet sounds from
> ten feet away and the delay is very minimal.  even adding in room
> reflections which compound that spacial effect, it's still quite dry
> sounding if you will.
> 11.25 ms is barely noticeable.
> so, since the delay is very very apparent when using record monitor, I
> wonder if the latency is being stacked through the way the sound is
> processed?  IE, signal in to the sound card, processed and that process
> takes say 11MS.  Then the signal is processed again for record monitor,
> taking 11MS then sent back out the sound card so you can hear it, taking
> another 11MS...does that make any sence at all?  because I can tell you
> absolutely that the latency I hear in reaper is far far far more than
> standing 10 feet away from your amp cabinet.
> It's actually similar to how it would sound standing in the middle of a
> large empty room at least 100 feet across...which would seem to me to
> probably be in the range of 50MS minimum plus a couple more to get to my
> ears from the monitor speakers...so from time of actual sound source,
> like a hand clap, to the time the sound comes back and gets to my ears,
> it's gotta be at least 60MS.
> Again, it sounds like a slap back delay with a single repeat.
> shrug
>
> Regards
> Colin
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Indigo" <33indigo at charter.net>
> To: "Reapers Without Peepers" <rwp at reaaccess.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, May 29, 2013 1:26 AM
> Subject: Re: [RWP] latency in reaper
>
>
>> Man, 3 to 6 ms is nothing to worry about.
>> When you sit with your electric guitar like 10 feet from your
>> speakers, you get latency.
>> I don't have the actual figures before me, but your ears get the sound
>> from the speakers with a delay, because sounds runs fairly slowly
>> through the air between your guitar and the speaker cabinet.
>> The electrical signal from the guitar through the amp to the speaker
>> may run at near the speed of light, but not sound plowing its way back
>> through the air to reach your ears
>> It has a couple ms delay.
>>
>> On 5/29/2013 3:08 AM, Colin McDonald wrote:
>>> yes, I have changed the media buffering settings as well...default is
>>> 1200MS, so I don't think that has anything to do with recording latency.
>>> But I've tried everything between 0 and 1200 and no change at all.
>>> I'm pretty sure I'm stuck with 11MS of latency just due to the hardware
>>> limitations.  And without a reverse latency offset function in reaper,
>>> or, at least one that works with my machines, I'm not going to get it
>>> any better than that.
>>> How do you guys deal with even a few MS of latency?  I guess I'm old
>>> school analogue or something or used to using hardware recorders that
>>> have no latency to speak of.
>>> 11MS is allot to my ears, and even 3MS would bug me.
>>>
>>> Regards
>>> Colin
>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Indigo" <33indigo at charter.net>
>>> To: "Reapers Without Peepers" <rwp at reaaccess.com>
>>> Sent: Tuesday, May 28, 2013 11:49 PM
>>> Subject: Re: [RWP] latency in reaper
>>>
>>>
>>>> Colin, do you find another buffer to reduce; arrow down below midi
>>>> device to buffer?
>>>> Tab down in that title and there should be a second buffer that might
>>>> be possible to shrink.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 5/28/2013 9:28 PM, Jim Snowbarger wrote:
>>>>> Latency at the end of the menu bar.
>>>>> Wow,  good tip,  I had not seen this.
>>>>> I'm showing 7.4mS, 256 samples.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Colin McDonald"
>>>>> <blulemon at telus.net>
>>>>> To: "Reapers Without Peepers" <rwp at reaaccess.com>
>>>>> Sent: Tuesday, May 28, 2013 12:40 AM
>>>>> Subject: Re: [RWP] latency in reaper
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> interestingly, if you are a jaws user, you can see the current
>>>>>> latency
>>>>>> by routing jaws to PC cursor, going to top of page and it states the
>>>>>> latency in MS at the end of the menu bar....second line down.
>>>>>> This is in track view with one track inserted and armed with record
>>>>>> monitor set to normal.
>>>>>> Mine is currently at 11MS.
>>>>>> I can see changes when I alter the block size in the audio device
>>>>>> settings...i've got it on 256, if I go to 512 the latency shows 17MS.
>>>>>> Down to 96 and it shows 7.9ms.
>>>>>> Now in the recording tab under preferences, I should be able to stick
>>>>>> in negative 11 into the output offset field and it should compensate
>>>>>> for that delay...
>>>>>> Doesn't work though
>>>>>> I should be able to put in say 200ms and get a much longer delay,
>>>>>> again, no worky lol.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Regards
>>>>>> COlin
>>>>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Colin McDonald"
>>>>>> <blulemon at telus.net>
>>>>>> To: "Reapers Without Peepers" <rwp at reaaccess.com>
>>>>>> Sent: Monday, May 27, 2013 10:45 PM
>>>>>> Subject: [RWP] latency in reaper
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Well i switched to asio for all again as my audio driver and the
>>>>>>> latency definitely dropped to about half of what it was with direct
>>>>>>> sound or wdm or wav out...but it's still very apparent...like having
>>>>>>> a short slap back echo on everything.
>>>>>>> I went and tried to adjust the recording latency in the preferences
>>>>>>> under recording...there is an input, and output latency adjustment
>>>>>>> there, but no matter what I put in there, it made absolutely no
>>>>>>> difference.  Tried from posative and negative 10 all the way up to
>>>>>>> 200MS in all the fields, in different combinations etc etc, and
>>>>>>> there
>>>>>>> is no difference between having 0's in those fields and putting any
>>>>>>> type of number in there.
>>>>>>> Any thoughts guys?
>>>>>>> I turned off the automatically detect reported latency check box
>>>>>>> beside the edit fields.  Maybe there is something somewhere else
>>>>>>> that
>>>>>>> I have checked, or unchecked that is preventing these manual
>>>>>>> input/output adjustments from functioning correctly.
>>>>>>> I've done this same thing in audacity as I said, and I just kept
>>>>>>> changing the value by a few MS until there was zero slap back echo
>>>>>>> effect happening...you could really hear it change if you went too
>>>>>>> far or not far enough.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Regards
>>>>>>> Colin
>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
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