Re: My New Midi Interface

On Sep 21, 1:51 pm, neverl...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (Pete) wrote:
In article <0a5a700e-6f0c-4e17-8eff-d270ea250...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,



MacaualyFlower  <macaulay.flo...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hello,

For a long time ago I have wanted to start making music using samples
of real sounds.  I finally bought myself a MIDI interface for my
computer.  However, one thing is concerning me about this.

The first thing I tested with my MIDI keyboard interface is a VSTi
synthesizer  that comes with REAPER.  It is mentioned in the REAPER
help file about how to work with MIDI.  I think it is called
ReaSynth.  My concern is that it would make the sound only about a
half a second after pushing the key on the piano.  To me this is quite
a bit of latency.  I was expecting it to be immediate.

So I download a free sampler called ShortCircuit 2.  I found that the
latency wasn't quite as bad, but was still there.  I would turn the
volume up on my keyboard and hit the key.  I would hear the piano
sound and then a very short time later the sample on my computer.
Therefore there is a slight latency.

Was I being unrealistic when I expected these things to be immediate?
Or is there something wrong with my setup.

Hi Andrew,

I'm afraid Windows is notorious for this.  (The latency is in the sound
output, not the MIDI, BTW.)  You don't say which version of Windows
you're using but the standard audio handling in most releases was very
slow.  I gather this may have changed in Vista, but I'm not sure.

In any case, you should look into Steinberg's ASIO

 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_Stream_Input/Output>

which is a free extension that bypasses all the Widows cruft to give
a snappy response.

[I don't quite know why this latency doesn't always appear.  A couple
of weeks ago, I had to give a demo of a Csound app driven by live MIDI,
on a Windows 2000 machine that I'd never seen before.  I installed
Csound, and without too much tinkering got it playing from my keyboard.
There was no latency at all!  As far as I know this was a vanilla OS,
with no added stuff, but maybe Csound does something right!]

Cheers,

                -- Pete --

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I am using Windows Vista.

I will try that.

Would a new sound card help?

Thanks,

Andrew
.

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