latency!.....is my concern with Renaissance

how will latency affect the famous mpc feel and swing.

i really dont think latency is going to be a problem with the unit, do you see latency being an issue with maschine?

hell, latency isnt even a real issue for me with an mpd as long as i have my settings correct.

latency does affect maschine...!!!! ..i had it! took it back. it wasn't as tight as an mpc and damn sure didnt have the feel and swing of an mpc.. i just don't get how people cant hear or feel the difference .my computer is top of the line the best cpu 16 gig mem fastest hd.and still latency played an issue in the performance from my fingers to the software.part of why mpcs are efficient at what they do is the lack of latency or virtually 0 latency .u can build from a thought to a manifested idea with little to no fiddling .Maschine i had to fiddle to much to get what i wanted .part of that issue was the few Milli seconds of latency was interpreted(digital guesses)thus notes are placed where i didnt want them .

You can have the most powerful computer in the world, but if the interface you got is the biggest piece of shit it will have latency like crazy. Unless you use an asio driver and can play around with the buffer settings to make it work properly

masada2502 wrote:latency does affect maschine...!!!! ..i had it! took it back. it wasn't as tight as an mpc and damn sure didnt have the feel and swing of an mpc.. i just don't get how people cant hear or feel the difference .my computer is top of the line the best cpu 16 gig mem fastest hd.and still latency played an issue in the performance from my fingers to the software.part of why mpcs are efficient at what they do is the lack of latency or virtually 0 latency .u can build from a thought to a manifested idea with little to no fiddling .Maschine i had to fiddle to much to get what i wanted .part of that issue was the few Milli seconds of latency was interpreted(digital guesses)thus notes are placed where i didnt want them .

You problem was with your sound card, sound card drivers and not your computer.

I have Maschine hooked up to a PC and using my Fantom G as the sound card. Latency is at 441 samples coming in at 30.0 ms. Even with this latency, I can work without issues.

If you got a better sound card, you will have better results.

Here me now! ......... oops thats meant to be hear, not here..doh...

Sorry to be so forceful but enough of the nonsense that latency wont affect how you interact with this machine or any VST or pad controller.

If you use any look ahead plugins as you write such as limiters, some compressors, eqs, other virtual instruments your latency will creep up. This is NOT a theory, this is fact. There are many plugins out there which add no latency, but there are many that do, and software companies dont always make this information available.

Adjusting your soundcards buffer settings will not solve a plugins built in latency. My RME card is permanently set to 64 samples and then I have to raise it to 128 or 256, and sometimes 512 later on in the track depending on when I add more plugins. Even at 128 or 256 I can feel the delay easily. I will say the worst software for this by a long way is ableton live. Even just creating group tracks for some reason increases the latency a lot.

This is the reason I have never purchased a pad type controller. I would like to, but as I write and mix as I go along, and adding plugins it soon becomes impossible to play a VST with any accuracy. keep in mind, this is a plugin with a controller so will be affected by the other stuff we do in our Daws.

If you write without FX, EQ, compression and then mix later on you will be fine. But a lot of us dont work like this and never have. I have to hear it like a record as I work.

JAH wrote:

masada2502 wrote:latency does affect maschine...!!!! ..i had it! took it back. it wasn't as tight as an mpc and damn sure didnt have the feel and swing of an mpc.. i just don't get how people cant hear or feel the difference .my computer is top of the line the best cpu 16 gig mem fastest hd.and still latency played an issue in the performance from my fingers to the software.part of why mpcs are efficient at what they do is the lack of latency or virtually 0 latency .u can build from a thought to a manifested idea with little to no fiddling .Maschine i had to fiddle to much to get what i wanted .part of that issue was the few Milli seconds of latency was interpreted(digital guesses)thus notes are placed where i didnt want them .

You problem was with your sound card, sound card drivers and not your computer.

I have Maschine hooked up to a PC and using my Fantom G as the sound card. Latency is at 441 samples coming in at 30.0 ms. Even with this latency, I can work without issues.

If you got a better sound card, you will have better results.

Your telling me you dont feel the massive delay with 30ms.
Ok, but I feel it at 5ms which the begins to affect the nuances of what I play. At 12-16ms it becomes nearly impossible for me to play.

An actual MPC will trigger a sound within 4 samples of you hitting the pad.
Are you sure your Fantom doesnt have direct mode when monitoring external sounds?

labcoats wrote:Here me now!

Sorry to be so forceful but enough of the nonsense that latency wont affect how you interact with this machine or any VST or pad controller.

If you use any look ahead plugins as you write such as limiters, some compressors, eqs, other virtual instruments your latency will creep up. This is NOT a theory, this is fact. There are many plugins out there which add no latency, but there are many that do, and software companies dont always make this information available.

Adjusting your soundcards buffer settings will not solve a plugins built in latency. My RME card is permanently set to 64 samples and then I have to raise it to 128 or 256, and sometimes 512 later on in the track depending on when I add more plugins. Even at 128 or 256 I can feel the delay easily. I will say the worst software for this by a long way is ableton live. Even just creating group tracks for some reason increases the latency a lot.

This is the reason I have never purchased a pad type controller. I would like to, but as I write and mix as I go along, and adding plugins it soon becomes impossible to play a VST with any accuracy. keep in mind, this is a plugin with a controller so will be affected by the other stuff we do in our Daws.

If you write without FX, EQ, compression and then mix later on you will be fine. But a lot of us dont work like this and never have. I have to hear it like a record as I work.

+1

i hav e a great sound card m audio 2626. and a rme pci .both great cards ....try again...thx labcoats.someone gets it.

labcoats wrote:
Your telling me you dont feel the massive delay with 30ms.
Ok, but I feel it at 5ms which the begins to affect the nuances of what I play. At 12-16ms it becomes nearly impossible for me to play.

An actual MPC will trigger a sound within 4 samples of you hitting the pad.
Are you sure your Fantom doesnt have direct mode when monitoring external sounds?

I didn't say I didn't notice it because I do. However, latency is a part of working with computers and its how you adapt to this. Believe me...I get it.

My MPC 2000XL has very little latency. Maschine using my Fantom as a sound card has much more. But I can easiy knock out the same drum patterns without issues because I have adapted. 10 years ago, I struggled with latency. I don't have these problems any more.

As far as plugins, the talk of buffer settings was not directed at them. Plugin delay is the nature of DAWs. Most DAWs now have plugin delay compensation. Before this, other producers and engineers calculated plugin latency and made adjustments (I have no idea how they accomplish this). What I want to know is how the MPC Ren will differ than a DAW with a controller or Maschine. If you don't use a controller with a DAW because of latency, how do you record? Any experience using Maschine with a lot of plugins?

JAH wrote:

labcoats wrote:
Your telling me you dont feel the massive delay with 30ms.
Ok, but I feel it at 5ms which the begins to affect the nuances of what I play. At 12-16ms it becomes nearly impossible for me to play.

An actual MPC will trigger a sound within 4 samples of you hitting the pad.
Are you sure your Fantom doesnt have direct mode when monitoring external sounds?

I didn't say I didn't notice it because I do. However, latency is a part of working with computers and its how you adapt to this. Believe me...I get it.

My MPC 2000XL has very little latency. Maschine using my Fantom as a sound card has much more. But I can easiy knock out the same drum patterns without issues because I have adapted. 10 years ago, I struggled with latency. I don't have these problems any more.

As far as plugins, the talk of buffer settings was not directed at them. Plugin delay is the nature of DAWs. Most DAWs now have plugin delay compensation. Before this, other producers and engineers calculated plugin latency and made adjustments (I have no idea how they accomplish this). What I want to know is how the MPC Ren will differ than a DAW with a controller or Maschine. If you don't use a controller with a DAW because of latency, how do you record? Any experience using Maschine with a lot of plugins?

It's funny. Yesterday you wanted to know how the MPC Ren would be any different than a stand-alone MPC. You were unwilling to concede that latency would be any different. At least you're coming to your senses and not being such a fanboy.

labcoats wrote:Here me now!

Sorry to be so forceful but enough of the nonsense that latency wont affect how you interact with this machine or any VST or pad controller.

If you use any look ahead plugins as you write such as limiters, some compressors, eqs, other virtual instruments your latency will creep up. This is NOT a theory, this is fact. There are many plugins out there which add no latency, but there are many that do, and software companies dont always make this information available.

Adjusting your soundcards buffer settings will not solve a plugins built in latency. My RME card is permanently set to 64 samples and then I have to raise it to 128 or 256, and sometimes 512 later on in the track depending on when I add more plugins. Even at 128 or 256 I can feel the delay easily. I will say the worst software for this by a long way is ableton live. Even just creating group tracks for some reason increases the latency a lot.

This is the reason I have never purchased a pad type controller. I would like to, but as I write and mix as I go along, and adding plugins it soon becomes impossible to play a VST with any accuracy. keep in mind, this is a plugin with a controller so will be affected by the other stuff we do in our Daws.

If you write without FX, EQ, compression and then mix later on you will be fine. But a lot of us dont work like this and never have. I have to hear it like a record as I work.

you are aware that when during recording you want your buffer setting to be lower like 64 or 128 samples, and during the mix stage you want it to be higher 512 or 1024 right?

i do understand about some plugins introducing latency to tracks, but thats not the same thing as people are talking about with a pad controller.

when you have a "latency inducing plugin", it will have a certain number of samples it will set you audio track back, but there are ways to figure out how many samples each plugin delays a track and you can move it back manually, IF your daw has no automatic delay compensation. (ie protools m-powered or LE)

if your daw has automatic delay compensation enabled, this shouldent be such a huge issue.

but for the people that think the latency is that big of a deal with their mpds, or controllers, just turn your buffer up in your audio settings and use a good soundcard.

JAH wrote:

labcoats wrote:
Your telling me you dont feel the massive delay with 30ms.
Ok, but I feel it at 5ms which the begins to affect the nuances of what I play. At 12-16ms it becomes nearly impossible for me to play.

An actual MPC will trigger a sound within 4 samples of you hitting the pad.
Are you sure your Fantom doesnt have direct mode when monitoring external sounds?

I didn't say I didn't notice it because I do. However, latency is a part of working with computers and its how you adapt to this. Believe me...I get it.

My MPC 2000XL has very little latency. Maschine using my Fantom as a sound card has much more. But I can easiy knock out the same drum patterns without issues because I have adapted. 10 years ago, I struggled with latency. I don't have these problems any more.

As far as plugins, the talk of buffer settings was not directed at them. Plugin delay is the nature of DAWs. Most DAWs now have plugin delay compensation. Before this, other producers and engineers calculated plugin latency and made adjustments (I have no idea how they accomplish this). What I want to know is how the MPC Ren will differ than a DAW with a controller or Maschine. If you don't use a controller with a DAW because of latency, how do you record? Any experience using Maschine with a lot of plugins?

There is no latency in your 2kXL. There is however lag which measure at 46 samples between quarter notes. IE The largest drift between two consecutive quarter notes. But that's the MPC, not the pad when you hit it. Even if the sound triggered 46 samples after you struck the pad that is unnoticeable

I see you wrote 30ms when you meant 3.0ms, or may have misinterpreted you. Thats fine but believe me when you add plugins your latency will creep up fast and before you know it your up to 10+ milliseconds and then you really will feel that which will then seriously mess with your karma.

I agree, latency is a fact of Daw life. But as I said if you write and mix as you work adding plugins the latency creeps in fast and compounds the problem. This was never a problem during the hardware years of real consoles, out board effects etc. If you grew up composing like that its not easy to then accommodate a much inferior way of working. To me and many others it feels like ten steps backwards.
ttom line is if theres is even a slight delay this will affect everything you do when your writing.

...........................................

How do I record
I went completely in the box in 2001. I had no idea about latency. It was fortunate that my very first Daw was Pro Tools 4. It was a mix ++ system so as Im sure you know the dsp took care of latency. It was never a problem. In 2005 I went native still not knowing anything about latency. It has been a constant battle since.
Last year I started buying hardware again as I'm sick of it. I mean really really sick of it. I always thought a real solution would arrive, but it hasnt. During those in the box years I of course had a controller key board but the truth iswhen writing a tune I always ended up basically mousing everything in. I can barely play a chord these days as my musicianship suffered. Ive had enough of that.

Ren is a fantastic product. But its all rather moot for me becasue of the above. If I could work without bussing stuff, comps, eqs etc then fine, but I cant. As I say I must hear it like a record as I work. So, as time goes on I will be buying more outboard.

Oh, when recording any external sources I would of course use the sound cards monitoring features which as you know bypass the Daw. But its not great when yo have a totally dry guitar playing in context with your tune which sound like a record. hope that helps you understand why some people are wary of any gear like this.

You mean the 2000XL has no latency or its such a small amount it is not noticable? Latency is everywhere. From the time you press a pad to AD/DA conversion and hit your speakers...back to your ears.

I never owned a Pro Tools system. I have always used Native since 2001 when I was using Nuendo 1.5. I learned what latency was at that time and learned how to deal with it...such as using an external mixer which makes latency irrelevant to using the built-in mixers of my RME sound card where you route incoming audio directly to outputs for headphone mixes.

So in terms of the MPC Ren, if you have used a native DAW,keyboard/pad controller, Maschine, etc, I suspect that performace will at least equal these set-ups. Will the MPC Ren be as tight as an standalone MPC? I'm not sure if that is possible but I don't believe it will be an issue as I don't see many latency threads in the NI Forum.

Besides...in this forum...very few if any are working on Pro Tools HD systems.

damien907 wrote:

you are aware that when during recording you want your buffer setting to be lower like 64 or 128 samples, and during the mix stage you want it to be higher 512 or 1024 right?

yes, of course. But if you had read what I had said about writing and mixing as I go along...know what I mean. I dont write a track dry and then set about mixing it. In fact I dont know anyone who works like that.

i do understand about some plugins introducing latency to tracks, but thats not the same thing as people are talking about with a pad controller.

How do you figure llatency inducing plugins will have no bearing on Ren? Recorded audio tracks use the exact same plugins as live VST tracks. No difference at all. Ren will run as a live plugin or stand alone. it doesnt have a magic button to avoid all latency.

when you have a "latency inducing plugin", it will have a certain number of samples it will set you audio track back, but there are ways to figure out how many samples each plugin delays a track and you can move it back manually, IF your daw has no automatic delay compensation. (ie protools m-powered or LE)

Your only thinking about shifting audio which has been recorded from external sources which arrives back in to your Daw late. However, software like Cubase shifts that audio to where its supposed to be as its recorded, as does Logic and I think Pro tools. But this actually has no bearing on using Ren, a live instrument which must be monitored through your software in real time. Lets say your working on a track using Ren. As you work you add plugins and for a while everything is ok. Then you add your fav limiter, do some bussing because as you work you need to get the sound right. Lets say an extreme example I inserted Ozone which has 4000 samples of latency. What happens is by the time you then hit that pad it will take 4ms for the sound to be triggered. Start playing 16ths hi hats on your pads and your going to notice it. The reality is, you get so much done and then its the mouse for the rest of the song. Is that what you want from Ren? I want to be able to play stuff in right up to the point Im ready to render the track. Its not a dream scenario, this is how I used to work when my setup was all real gear.

but for the people that think the latency is that big of a deal with their mpds, or controllers, just turn your buffer up in your audio settings and use a good soundcard.

Oh, buffer settings again. Sorry man, Ive heard that so many times before its become tiresome now. Latency is still a huge deal, for electronic musicians who wish to actually play instruments. Its not a huge deal for many who are happy to use a mouse for all their musical input.

So tell me how you work.