questions concerning audio performance

[muze]

I just got off the phone with a tech from a well known sound card manufacturer. I'm having what I thought were latency problems with my new sound card from them, on my new computer. In short, in Sibelius 3, notes from my MIDI keyboard get transcribed half a beat late onto the notation staff.

He said it's not latency because it's a MIDI issue and latency rarely occurs in MIDI, only audio. His example was recording on a mic and getting a delay in recording.

While I'm sure this happens, it's never happened to me, recording anything with a mic (or any direct analog signal) records immediately with NO latency. In fact the ONLY times I've had trouble with latency would be when inputting MIDI from an external controller. I realize that it's probably the audio that is 'latent,' after the struck MIDI note, but I'm still not convinced by his explanation.

Then he said that USB mice and keyboards aren't generally good for audio.

He also said that WDM isn't as good as ASIO; that WDM does 'things' in the background without the user's permission, and that it's not a good choice for audio.

So, agree/disagree?

[Afrotronic]

In my experience, WDM drivers were more efficient (in Sonar) and achieved better latency than my experience with ASIO (in Cubase)

[Afrotronic]

MIDI keyboard/controller data over USB is fine too. The information is so small and requires such little bandwidth, performance hit is negligible

[fetaost]

I know that in Cubase there can be a midi timing problem if you use _emulated_ midi drivers. Check the midi settings. I've never used Sibelius so I don't know about that though. I guess Sibelius has some support you could call too.

[dawboxpro]

I have experienced this problem down the road a few times. If your software has the option of using asio or WDM try switching those to see what effect it has on latency.

Also try to dissable some of the ports on the card if there are more than stereo in and out.

Also dissable on-board sound and of you are not using things like firewire or usb 2.0 ports go to device manager and take those out as well. Go into your bios and dissable all the ports you will not be using.

If your using a usb mouse on top of a usb sound card, usb midi interface your asking for bandwidth issues.

Remember that dispite new MB having hypertransport and more IRQ's as well as on-board integration that does not mean you have more bandwidth for devices to leave everything on...

Dissable whatever crap you can, romove software that runs in the backround.

The bottom line is if you have little resources used but the card and the interface and there is still an issue, try removing the software, the soundcard and all its drivers, then the interface and it's drivers then re-install.

Look for a settings issue within the card and the software to see if it changes anything. If your still up the creek after tech support from the manufacturers. Consider an OS redo, or getting a non-usb midi interface, or another brand of interface.

[dawboxpro]

oops

[BAP]

Is your Sib 3 writing the notes incorrectly or do they just seem to appear on your screen after the fact? The Kontakt player in Sib 3 requires ASIO drivers, I believe.

If it's a matter of notes appearing late but coming out correctly than it might be a computer speed thing. Sib 3 and Kontakt Player are fairly demanding apps. and, depending on your graphics settings, it might take your box a moment to take care of everything it needs to before putting the graphics on screen. You might also play with the 'smoothing feature' which at some settings can use a bit of CPU.

If it is a problem then I would post on the Sibelius Help Forum. There are many people who know Sib inside and out over there.

Latency wise, Sibelius is never as good for me as Sonar or Samplitude. It just sort of sets it and doesn't give you control. It's not audio software, though.

[KX]

Sibelius sends a lot of midi to make sure prog change, controler etc are well tracked... from my experience Sib induce a midi lag when you hit play but it has nothing to do with audio
latency as we know it in DAW.

[BAP]

I do step time input almost exclusively in order to avoid clean-up.
When I've done flex-time input I remember seeing the notes appear after I had depressed the notes on my piano controller. I don't remember where the sound was latency-wise, but I often do note input with sound sound off.

[dawboxpro]

Just try to record midi with another program and if you get the same delays then there is an issue with resources and your midi interface or your midi interface.