Is this latency acceptable with asio?

RonJay

I have been researching latency with my audio setup, and I don't know if this is good or bad enough for me to record with my midi instruments (attached). What can I do to reduce it? My audio Is currently running through my sp404 mk2 because the maschine interface has a lot of noise for me.

PK The DJ

It's up to you to decide whether that latency is acceptable, for your own circumstances.

What's your ASIO buffer size currently? You could potentially lower the latency by reducing the buffer size, but you have to find the figure that's right for your system.

D-One

Like PK said only you can decide. For me, that is way too much and will feel laggy, at a buffer of 256 which is really big i get around 16ms of total latency with a really cheap interface, so 30+ is kind of crazy.

RonJay

I do have my buffer at 256, and it still has 30 ms of latency. Idk what other things could cause it though.

Kubrak

I guess, those numbers come from Traktor. Is it so? So, you have to discount 11.6 ms. So, the round trip is 23 ms. It is pretty much. But you have to decide what is acceptable for your use case.

And if you do not record, just make music, even roundtrip is not the value, that is important. Just output that is 5.7 ms….

chk071

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/162924#Comment_162924

The ASIO driver of your audio device, first of all.

RonJay

Tried using ASIO4All and FlexASIO and both give similar or worse results since the sp404mk2 doesnt have a dedicated driver for itself.

D-One

My interface is also driverless (class-compliant) so that alone cant be it. I would ask somewhere with a lot of sp404 users if that latency is normal when using it as an interface, Rolands forum, or Reddit.

Maybe it is because it does its own processing thing on the IO thus adding more processing latency, for characteristic sound? No ideia tbh

chk071

Well, on Windows you will need a low latency driver. And, ASIO4ALL or FlexASIO are rather bad when it comes to latency. As is Windows Audio/WASAPI.

If you're reliant on very low buffer sizes, I would buy an audio interface with dedicated ASIO driver, and prerrably one from RME, as they offer very low latency devices.

But, again, first of all, I would make sure I really need such low buffer sizes. If you're not a musician who can sense 10 ms of latency when playing in piano parts, you won't need low latency at all. For example, I don't need it at all, as I'm doing everything in my DAW's piano roll.

D-One

I would not go spending 1000$+ on an RME specifically for the latency gains, especially if 2 IN/OUT is all you need, that's way overkill. You're not paying for just better latency, it's the converters, noise floor, dynamic range, and tons of other stuff… It's worth it only when you record a lot, especially real instruments imo.

• 1300$ RME Fireface UCX USB, 128 Buffer = 6-8ms of RTL
• 200$ Audient ID22 with same settings = 11ms RTL

+-3ms is a really marginal gain difference for the extra 1000$, feel free to see interface comparisons on Gearspace. The bottom line is any cheap top ranked interface in the 80-150$ range will give you about +-10ms at 128 buffer and +-15ms at 256, you have double that with your SP404.

chk071

I wouldn't spend so much either. It was rather the "deluxe" recommendation, when you're really after every ms of lower latency.

That's why it would be important to figure out what the OP actually wants to do, and why he needs such low latency. Maybe he doesn't need it at all. I know that I don't.