latency, what to do what to do

[Reveren Kamakaze]

Caution: Long post ahead, no really unless you patient,read the post heading and skip to the bottom.

So Ill start with hardware specs. I have a Focusrite Scarelette 2i2, yes its cheap yes its entry level. My main reson for purchasing it was because I had an Mbox, I was saving for a Stienberg UR824, and the day I decieded to take getting that interface seriously, the Mbox got pissed off and bombed out. Computer wise I have a Quad core AMD, 8gigs of RAM and a 7200rpm HDD that I run with Ableton.

Now to the problem. I was running a proj in Live with a few VST plug ins, and I was ready to arrange and record my plugins to wave from the clip to arrangement using an apc. At most I think I had about 6 plugins each with their own audio tracks. Now when I play out the clips with out arming and recording I use up between 15 to 20 percent on the resource bar. But the moment I arm all the VST tracks and trigger the first clip, it all goes insane. There is even a delay on the APC's feed back lights. Its a real pain, so do I change my interface or do I up my computer?

Computer wise, I'm thinking Ill probably max out my RAM to 32gigs , in prep for 64bit Ableton 9 and to up my processor to and 8 core AMD.

But if I only need to better my interface, I'm again screwed. I still have not started saving up for a Interface. At this point I'm ready to spend between R3000 to R3500 +-£300 to £350. However I am torn between Focusright and Allen & Heath.

With Focusright, there are the following;
Scarlet 18i6 and the Saffire Pro 24 DSP. I like the fact that they both have multiple outputs and I like the quality preamps. What would help is if some one could clarify if the head phone out would work as a cue head phone out?

With the Allen&Heath there is the ZED10. It doesn't hurt that it's Allen & Heath, the price is a steal and in this case the inputs are definitely a major plus cause I can always look at outputs as a plus latter on. The same counts for the Focusright. My main concern is that although it has USB, does it really work well as an interface for recording?

Yip this is a dilemma. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Bottom
Any suggestions as to what I can do to fix this?

[ZooTV]

Try making sure your usbs are connected either directly to the pc, or to an actively powered usb hub. Also, try playing with your buffer size in the able to settings. If that doesn't work, check your sound drivers ASIO settings, apc and other firmware. Try recording each track separately? Trying using the apc to jot down the ide and then painting it midi to save resources?

I'm just spitting out ideas here. Can't really go in depth as I'm trying to fight boredom in class :-P

[Reveren Kamakaze]

Thanks but all my USB's are direct in my computer, and the midi notes are already done in the plugins. Hmmm would using a single midi channel sending notes to the plugins help. I tried uping the buffer would lowering help? I have kept ASIO on default, are there better settings for ASIO?
Continue fighting the boredom and save me.

[Patch]

Sounds to me like you need to read up on PDC, mate. (Plugin Delay Compensation).

[ZooTV]

Sounds to me like you need to read up on PDC, mate. (Plugin Delay Compensation).

I second that. your computer specs way outperform my own, and I can run a lot more than 6 vsts simultaneously in a session. I know in ASIO there are setting for latency and buffer sizes. I'm not sure how an apc works midi wise, but are you trying to play each vst at the same time or are you launching clips? I have a midi keyboard and basically I tell live to direct midi to a certain vst at a time (a little red button at the bottom of the bus in clip view)

[Reveren Kamakaze]

Yay, I have reached boss mode in noob world. I never hear of PDC, definitely sounds like the fix, I google it, gonna do some reading now. Thanks guys.@ZooTv, yeah I'm launching midi clips that send audio to audio clips.

[mostapha]

This might be completely off the wall, and I know you don't want to hear it……I'm also not 100% sure that it matters with Live, but……………if anyone says anything about AMD vs. Intel, Intel is preferred for Audio Applications.

I'm honestly not sure why. But with the specs and behavior you're giving, something is seriously wrong.

Also, Plugin Delay Compensation has to do with keeping everything in sync when plugins take different amounts of time to do what they're doing. If that were an issue, it'd show up when you were just playing things together, not only when you're trying to record.

[ZooTV]

This might be completely off the wall, and I know you don't want to hear it……I'm also not 100% sure that it matters with Live, but……………if anyone says anything about AMD vs. Intel, Intel is preferred for Audio Applications.

I'm honestly not sure why. But with the specs and behavior you're giving, something is seriously wrong.

Also, Plugin Delay Compensation has to do with keeping everything in sync when plugins take different amounts of time to do what they're doing. If that were an issue, it'd show up when you were just playing things together, not only when you're trying to record.

Lol, it seems to me by your first statement, you wanted to avoid turning this into an Intel vs amd troll war :-P. I won't argue for or against, but my pc has an amd processor and it's a cheap pc I put together from spare family member parts, and yet I can record way more than 6 tracks with vsts on them.

[Nicky H]

I have a Saffire USB and it's the worst soundcard I have ever owned.
I'm lucky if I can get 50ms latency in Ableton - it's just unusuable for my setup and is going on eBay this week.
The USB 2 driver won't even load on my pc.

Focusrite say it's a Windows problem with USB and in paticular Intel processors:
http://www.focusrite.com/answerbase/...le.php?id=1128

Yours isn't listed as having problems but I bet it's related... Sell it and get an Audio 2

[liam1895]

Lol, it seems to me by your first statement, you wanted to avoid turning this into an Intel vs amd troll war :-P. I won't argue for or against, but my pc has an amd processor and it's a cheap pc I put together from spare family member parts, and yet I can record way more than 6 tracks with vsts on them.

I'm with you. I have a AMD cpu and ive also owned 2 highly rated intel cpu's and I am almost certainly sure there is no performance differences between the 2. Especially when I picked up a 8 core AMD cpu for less than that of a quad core Intel.

Anyway, Back to the OP. Have you tried just not using the Focusrite at all? Try using ASIO4ALL drivers with the APC and see how you go with that and a buffer of 512.

Maybe try freezing the tracks your not using too??