Live 3 standalone latency

Just picked up the Live 3 and think Akai really did a good job on this one.

However, I immediately noticed the delay when playing the pads in standalone. Yes, I'm kinda picky when it comes to this and don't like any perceivable delay when playing the pads. I guess I am spoiled by using low buffers on my audio rig for Maschine and Push. Live 3 feels like it's set to about 256 buffers to me which is not terrible but not so great. The OG hardware did not have this issue. Modern gear use a different technology with buffers to reduce CPU load but in most cases you can adjust this to your preferences. I was not able to find any setting for this like I can on the Push 3. I think Akai should let us adjust the latency to be a bit more responsive. Should be able to adjust sample rate to other that 44.1k too. Am I the only one that noticed this?

Funnily enough, I hooked it up to MPC 3 Software in controller mode on my PC and found the MPC audio driver. It defaulted to 256 buffers and the latency felt exactly the same as stand alone. However, It allows you to adjust all the way down to 64 samples. Even 128 samples felt okay to me but 64 was perfect. Also, it seems the sound card in the Live 3 is native 48k as that is the only option available. Common Akai, let us adjust this in standalone.

I’m running into a different issue with the Live 3 in standalone. When I record my external synth into the MPC, the recording is always a little bit late on the timeline. While I’m playing, everything sounds in sync, but once the audio is recorded, it ends up behind the beat every time. This happens even when I monitor only through the MPC and record completely analog — so it’s not a mixer or routing problem.

I also can’t find any input/record latency compensation setting in OS 3.6.
So right now I have to manually nudge every take forward after recording.

Is anyone else getting this?

b-righteous wrote:Just picked up the Live 3 and think Akai really did a good job on this one.

However, I immediately noticed the delay when playing the pads in standalone. Yes, I'm kinda picky when it comes to this and don't like any perceivable delay when playing the pads. I guess I am spoiled by using low buffers on my audio rig for Maschine and Push. Live 3 feels like it's set to about 256 buffers to me which is not terrible but not so great. The OG hardware did not have this issue. Modern gear use a different technology with buffers to reduce CPU load but in most cases you can adjust this to your preferences. I was not able to find any setting for this like I can on the Push 3. I think Akai should let us adjust the latency to be a bit more responsive. Should be able to adjust sample rate to other that 44.1k too. Am I the only one that noticed this?

There was noticeable pad latency even on the Gen1 hardware — around 15 to 17 ms.

If 256 samples (at 44.1 kHz) correspond to about 6 to 8 ms, that would mean it’s an improvement over Gen1.

viewtopic.php?f=48&t=184142&hilit=latency&start=30#p1766524

Elijah wrote:There was noticeable pad latency even on the Gen1 hardware — around 15 to 17 ms.

If 256 samples (at 44.1 kHz) correspond to about 6 to 8 ms, that would mean it’s an improvement over Gen1.

viewtopic.php?f=48&t=184142&hilit=latency&start=30#p1766524

Right, I came across that thread after I noticed the delay. 256 samples @44.1K = 5.8ms latency but you have to apply both input and output. That gives you 11.6ms plus the delay of the DA converters so around 13ms round trip. I think Akai lowered the latency in an update from the 17ms found early in that thread from what some have said. Still, I think 13ms is too much. They should definitely allow us to adjust the buffers and sample rate. If we could run @96K that would cut the latency by more than half.

kreativsein wrote:I’m running into a different issue with the Live 3 in standalone. When I record my external synth into the MPC, the recording is always a little bit late on the timeline. While I’m playing, everything sounds in sync, but once the audio is recorded, it ends up behind the beat every time. This happens even when I monitor only through the MPC and record completely analog — so it’s not a mixer or routing problem.

I also can’t find any input/record latency compensation setting in OS 3.6.
So right now I have to manually nudge every take forward after recording.

Is anyone else getting this?

This could be that the latency of the AD converter is not reported so its not compensated for. This is why there should be away to add a latency offset value for the audio device.

b-righteous wrote:

kreativsein wrote:I’m running into a different issue with the Live 3 in standalone. When I record my external synth into the MPC, the recording is always a little bit late on the timeline. While I’m playing, everything sounds in sync, but once the audio is recorded, it ends up behind the beat every time. This happens even when I monitor only through the MPC and record completely analog — so it’s not a mixer or routing problem.

I also can’t find any input/record latency compensation setting in OS 3.6.
So right now I have to manually nudge every take forward after recording.

Is anyone else getting this?

This could be that the latency of the AD converter is not reported so its not compensated for. This is why there should be away to add a latency offset value for the audio device.

In the MPC2 era, recording to an audio track would apply a correction of around 400 samples. For some reason, it’s now about 140 samples, so playback may be roughly 6 ms later than before.

b-righteous wrote:

Elijah wrote:There was noticeable pad latency even on the Gen1 hardware — around 15 to 17 ms.

If 256 samples (at 44.1 kHz) correspond to about 6 to 8 ms, that would mean it’s an improvement over Gen1.

viewtopic.php?f=48&t=184142&hilit=latency&start=30#p1766524

Right, I came across that thread after I noticed the delay. 256 samples @44.1K = 5.8ms latency but you have to apply both input and output. That gives you 11.6ms plus the delay of the DA converters so around 13ms round trip. I think Akai lowered the latency in an update from the 17ms found early in that thread from what some have said. Still, I think 13ms is too much. They should definitely allow us to adjust the buffers and sample rate. If we could run @96K that would cut the latency by more than half.

Even with MPC 3.6 Gen1, the pad latency is still around 16 ms.

Also, the AD (input) latency doesn’t affect pad latency. It’s just the sum of the internal processing (a few ms) and the DA conversion (a few ms).

Elijah wrote:Even with MPC 3.6 Gen1, the pad latency is still around 16 ms.

Also, the AD (input) latency doesn’t affect pad latency. It’s just the sum of the internal processing (a few ms) and the DA conversion (a few ms).

Hmm, I always thought the input midi was delayed by the input buffer. So when you arm a track, midi input is delayed just as audio input. Of course, the converter AD latency is not a part of that since its not reported via the driver. I never dug into that so not sure though. Either way, what I hear from live 3 standalone seems to be equivalent to what you get with 256 buffers.

I did find a workaround though. I did not know my Push 3 is a class compliant audio interface. Akai says to run external interfaces @128 buffers 44.1k. I set that on my Push 3 then attached to the Live 3 USB and it worked! Latency is noticeably better monitoring through the Push. At least there is some type of workaround for class compliant interfaces.

Still, Akai needs to allow us to adjust the Live 3 audio buffers and sample rate. Not everyone has a class compliant interface. Let alone wants to tote it with the Live and loose the ability to use the speakers.