Latency Tolerance

thegummy

For those of you who play guitar through a PC/Mac based amp sim, either recording or just general playing, what do you have your round trip latency set at that gives you a comfortable and enjoyable experience?

Personally I was trying out 8.4ms for a couple of days to see how I liked it (because it would give more CPU breathing space) and it was close but there was just something that felt off about it and when I went back down to 4.8ms it instantly felt real again.

What about you?

octatonic

I use Avid HDX for this reason- latency is under 1ms.

thegummy

octatonic said:

I use Avid HDX for this reason- latency is under 1ms.

What sims are available for it?

What latency did you get with other sims that made you move to that one?

octatonic

Amp Farm.

I was getting 3ms with my native interface.

WiresDreamDisasters

At the moment I tend to monitor in real-time through the UA Console application, and not through the DAW. But I see my workflow changing when I eventually get a new machine and move to a different card.

I don't like latency at all. There are some great cards out there with good latency performance. I'm looking at the RME stuff, as well as the Presonus Quantum and Antelope Audio Discreet 8 Synergy Core, whose thunderbolt driver has matched the RME one for performance.

Danny1969

Basically I see music production as 2 processes ..... tracking and mixing. I have an old Protools HD system which is great for tracking with no latency but for mixing a modern machine with the latest plugins is preferred. The thinking behind this is you enjoy virtually zero latency (very important for the drummer) on your headphone mixes and you're never tempted to try and  fix a tracking problem with a fancy plugin because there's only the stock ones on the tracking machine

thegummy

Danny1969 said:

Basically I see music production as 2 processes ..... tracking and mixing. I have an old Protools HD system which is great for tracking with no latency but for mixing a modern machine with the latest plugins is preferred. The thinking behind this is you enjoy virtually zero latency (very important for the drummer) on your headphone mixes and you're never tempted to try and  fix a tracking problem with a fancy plugin because there's only the stock ones on the tracking machine

I take it you're not using an amp sim then?

mrkb

thegummy said:

For those of you who play guitar through a PC/Mac based amp sim, either recording or just general playing, what do you have your round trip latency set at that gives you a comfortable and enjoyable experience?

Personally I was trying out 8.4ms for a couple of days to see how I liked it (because it would give more CPU breathing space) and it was close but there was just something that felt off about it and when I went back down to 4.8ms it instantly felt real again.

What about you?

How far away from your amp cabinet can you bear standing in real life? 8.4ms is similar to standing about 9ft (or 3m) away from a cab.

Danny1969

thegummy said:

Danny1969 said:

Basically I see music production as 2 processes ..... tracking and mixing. I have an old Protools HD system which is great for tracking with no latency but for mixing a modern machine with the latest plugins is preferred. The thinking behind this is you enjoy virtually zero latency (very important for the drummer) on your headphone mixes and you're never tempted to try and  fix a tracking problem with a fancy plugin because there's only the stock ones on the tracking machine

I take it you're not using an amp sim then?

You get Digidesign 11 as a stock included plug which is ok, oh and Sansamp  and because they run as a TDM plug there's still no latency ..  as the HD cards have got DSP chips running the TDM plugins. 
I'm not a massive fan of amp sims, if it's anything important I will just mic an amp up.

thegummy

mrkb said:

thegummy said:

For those of you who play guitar through a PC/Mac based amp sim, either recording or just general playing, what do you have your round trip latency set at that gives you a comfortable and enjoyable experience?

Personally I was trying out 8.4ms for a couple of days to see how I liked it (because it would give more CPU breathing space) and it was close but there was just something that felt off about it and when I went back down to 4.8ms it instantly felt real again.

What about you?

How far away from your amp cabinet can you bear standing in real life? 8.4ms is similar to standing about 9ft (or 3m) away from a cab.

I don't play real amps but it's somewhere between 4.8 feet and 8.4 feet.

What about you?

PolarityMan

mrkb said:

thegummy said:

For those of you who play guitar through a PC/Mac based amp sim, either recording or just general playing, what do you have your round trip latency set at that gives you a comfortable and enjoyable experience?

Personally I was trying out 8.4ms for a couple of days to see how I liked it (because it would give more CPU breathing space) and it was close but there was just something that felt off about it and when I went back down to 4.8ms it instantly felt real again.

What about you?

How far away from your amp cabinet can you bear standing in real life? 8.4ms is similar to standing about 9ft (or 3m) away from a cab.

I was about to say the same thing. I can work with under 10ms after that it gets a bit annoying and if it's a light session will set to 5ms. That's interface reported though so haven't measured it to be accurate.

stratman3142

Mine's set to 5.4ms roundtrip for monitoring through my monitor speakers.

7.4ms roundtrip is OK for me when monitoring through my headphones.

Those are Reaper reported figures but they're very close to the results I got from the Oblique Audio RTL utility.

WiresDreamDisasters

Just be careful, coz what the driver reports to the host is very often wildly inaccurate. You should do a loopback test to be super sure.

Here is the Helix latency measurement at 44.1khz, 64 buffer size:


Here is my Universal Audio Apollo x8p with input delay compensation set to OFF:



Here is my Universal Audio Apollo x8p with input delay compensation set to SHORT:


Here is my Universal Audio Apollo x8p with input delay compensation set to MEDIUM:


Here is my Universal Audio Apollo x8p with input delay compensation set to MEDIUM-LONG:


Here is my Universal Audio Apollo x8p with input delay compensation set to LONG:


I never use anything higher than MEDIUM. I will sometimes use SHORT and OFF, depending on the project.

thegummy

stratman3142 said:

Mines set to 5.4ms roundtrip for monitoring through my monitor speakers.

7.4ms roundtrip is OK for me when monitoring through my headphones.

Those are Reaper reported figures but they're very close to the results I got from the Oblique Audio RTL utility.

I wonder how I'd find 7.4, that's in between the settings I find good and bad but it isn't an option for me. I think it might well be fine for me because the 8.4 isn't terrible, it's just a little bit laggy as if it's right on the verge of noticeability.

At the moment I can't have that heavy a session going and still get away with the latency I need so I'm planning on getting a new PC (I had always used external amp sims previously but have now moved over to PC based, though yet to record a full song because of the latency issue.

I'm hoping that the new PC will let me run a heavy session at the buffer setting I need for unnoticable latency and I don't also have to fork out for a new audio interface.

mike257

I do a lot of mixing monitors for artists wearing in-ears, where latency is most noticeable. Although tolerance can vary from person to person, anything more than 7ms can quickly become uncomfortable when pumped directly in to your lug'oles. 

LooseMoose

I appreciate this is a noob question, but is latency a byproduct of a poor interface, poor software, lack of computing power or both? I am a Mac user and have around 8ms of latency which I can clearly hear and bothers me when playing via Amp Sims.  I have a Presonus 24c and am happy to upgrade if that means I can cut it down?

My mac is far from brand new, but it’s i7, 8Gb and 240Gb SSD with nothing other than the sim and/or GarageBand open.

thegummy

LooseMoose said:

I appreciate this is a noob question, but is latency a byproduct of a poor interface, poor software, lack of computing power or both? I am a Mac user and have around 8ms of latency which I can clearly hear and bothers me when playing via Amp Sims.  I have a Presonus 24c and am happy to upgrade if that means I can cut it down?

My mac is far from brand new, but it’s i7, 8Gb and 240Gb SSD with nothing other than the sim and/or GarageBand open.

It's both the interface and the hardware.

Basically, the lower the buffer is set to, the more work the computer has to do in a short amount of time. But also the lower the buffer is set to, the lower the latency.

Different interfaces give different amounts of latency at each buffer setting.

So, for example, if the lowest buffer size your current interface can run at without crackling/dropouts gives you 8ms you can either get a faster computer which would allow you to lower the buffer size without getting crackling or dropouts and that would result in a lower latency.

Alternatively you could get a different audio interface which has a lower latency at that same buffer size setting that your current computer can handle.

Just as some extra info - the specs you list don't really give much clue about potential latency. The i7 is a family of processors that first came out 12 years ago so obviously those first i7s are ancient now. So it depends on the actual processor you have. The memory amount doesn't really have much effect either but the speed of the memory can in some circumstances. And the SSD is just about loading times, doesn't affect latency.

I don't think the Presonus interface is particularly great for latency so switching to a Zoom or RME interface would get you lower latency almost guaranteed.

I'd imagine that if you can only get down to 8ms with a single track and single amp sim running then the cpu is probably quite old as well so if you got a newer computer you'd almost definitely get better latency with your Presonus interface.

The Zoom interface is definitely the cheapest of those ugprades; RME interfaces pretty much cost the same as entire new powerful computers!

goldtop

Drivers and hardware optimisation, I think.

I went back to RME. I'll have to check tomorrow, but with my old system - 2008 iMac (C2D, 6GB RAM) - the relevant Logic dialog box was reporting something under 5ms, which is all I aim for. I don't fuss further if I don't feel the lag. I've not used a separate RTL utility, though.

LooseMoose

Which Zoom interface do people recommend?

WiresDreamDisasters

A faster computer quite often only gives you marginal improvements to round-trip latency. Because the CPU isn't really the bottleneck when it comes to latency. It's to do with the speed of the USB bus or PCI bus. But it's also hugely down to the driver implementation.

There are something like 3-4 USB audio drivers that most companies just grab off the shelf and slightly customize for their own needs. That means any device using the same driver is going to have roughly similar performance, regardless of manufacturer, audio I/O count, price-bracket, etc.

One of the common ones used for example is made by thesycon. It's a shit driver. Hard pass.

One element that massively affects latency is a "safety buffer" implemented in the driver that the user never sees. This is one of the reasons that round-trip latency cannot be correctly reported to the host. But this is a buffer you cannot change, and it's always there, increasing your latency. Chances are without it the driver would be utterly pants and you'd get dropouts all over the shop.

The number one reason - NUMBER ONE - reason that RME are the kings of latency is simple:
Their hardware team ALSO WRITE THEIR DRIVERS!!!

Antelope Audio for example... their USB driver is an off the shelf one. Their Thunderbolt one is a custom in-house written driver. Which is why their thunderbolt latencies match RME, but their USB ones simply do not.

thegummy

LooseMoose said:

Which Zoom interface do people recommend?

There are only really two - the UAC-2 with 2 inputs and the UAC-8 which I'd assume has 8 so it depends how many inputs you need.