Is my cable length between my soundcard and Macbook affecting latency?

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
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1

Is my cable length between my soundcard and Macbook affecting latency?

Hey all,

So I just upgraded my old laptop to an Oct 2011 Macbook Pro hoping for better latency in Traktor.

However, I’m only really gaining about 1 ms better latency. Any lower and I get pops and crackles in audio whilst cuing with timecode vinyl using an Audio 8.

The only thing I can think of that it might be is that I’m using a 1.5 meter cable between the Macbook and my sound card. I’ve heard that shorter is better (goes without saying really) but would the shorter cable really make that much difference, or do I just have to deal with the fact that I’ll have pops and crackles for the rest of my life no matter what hardware I use?

Thanks in advance guys.

2

A shorter cable is theoretically better as the longer the cable is, the greater the signal interference. But 1.5m really isn’t all that long. I would suggest trying a shorter cable.

The thing that affects latency the most is your CPU though, it’s strange that upgrading your laptop didn’t help. Have you tried fiddling about with your audio setup?

3

Yeah I’ll buy a shorter cable and see if that helps.

Yeah, it’s an i5 MBP so it should be fine which is very confusing…

What other audio settings would you suggest? I don’t suppose it could be my needles? Time code vinyl?

4

Try updating the drivers, I don’t think getting a shorter cable will help in this case since the bottle neck is either caused by the USB internal hub or the CPU itself. What is your current latency?

5

Is Traktor still struggling with Multi-core support? I also upgraded recently and kept it off… I’ll try it when I get home, but just a thought.

6

I went through the OSX optimisation page on the NI website and these seemed to help…

Keeping the MBP plugged in whilst mixing.
Make sure the soundcard isn’t plugged into the same port that shares the isight camera. I had it plugged in there before and it was giving me higher latency.

I’ve managed to get it down to a comfortable 14. something ms currently.

The drivers I am using are the ones that were included with 2.5.1.

I have that turned off anyway, but if you try it and find you have good results then definitely post back in here!

7

Turning off wifi and bluetooth connectivity helped with older models and earlier traktor builds, not sure if it still translates to the actual version but it won’t hurt trying.

Avoid analizing songs during playback to save some precious CPU cycles.

8

Yeah, I’ve turned off BT and Wifi. Never analyze during playback.

Strange that it won’t go any lower with the load meter freaking out and getting mad pops and crackles.

9

What are your current driver settings?

10

are you using osx 10.8? if you are you need the beta drivers off ni website

11

Up your computers sample rate to 48k, if it’s not already, and also make sure it’s 48k in Traktor. Then check your latency.

12

How do you mean? I am using the latest drivers from the TP2 2.5.1 update installer.

I’m using Lion, I don’t really know what version of OSX it is, as I use bootcamp with windows but use OSX for Traktor. But I know it’s a fully updated Lion install.

Wouldn’t that up the latency as it’s a higher sampling rate therefore demanding more CPU?

I really appreciate all the help guys, thanks!

13

click your apple in the top bar and then click about this mac. under OS X it will have a version number

14

UP your sample rate to 48K, it will drop your latency.

15

I’m currently running windoze so this may not be the case in mac? But i’ll throw it out anyway in case it is.

There is a second option on soundcard settings. make sure it’s set to the internal soundcard not traktor. This recently fixed my latency problems.

16

I’ll get this tomorrow, haven’t had chance to get on my laptop for a couple of days.

Would this have an adverse affect towards sound quality?

Where is this setting?

17

The setting doesn’t exist on OS X, it will automatically jump to your internal soundcard when you unplug the external one.

18

Nope it would improve your sound quality and lower your latentcy, if you’re currently set to 44.1. You just have to make sure your sample rate is set to 48k in your OS AND your sound card. If one is at 44.1k and the other 48k, then the music plays 4% faster.

19

This would certainly not improve audio quality, on the contrary. You’re introducing a round of sample rate conversion that is completely unneeded since the source material is at 44.1 kHz. It will also not do anything to enable lower latency than the system is capable of at 44.1. The latency for a given buffer size is inversely related to sample rate, as you hinted at, but processing power requirements for a given buffer size are directly related to sample rate. The OP is at their system limit with any reduction in buffer size at the current sample rate inducing overload, resulting from processing power shortage, not buffer size as such. Upping the sample rate will have the same effect as lowering buffer size, but at further reduced sound quality.

20

We’ll have to agree to disagree then. You’re assuming a 44.1k sample rate as the nominal rate for source. That’s only if you ripped and/or downloaded your entire collection at 44.1. Regardless, 48K is re-sampling the bits at a higher rate, so if it’s 128, 192, 320 mp3 OR 44.1k wav file, if the end result is 48k, it’s output is at a higher sample rate, resulting in a truer reproduction of whatever the source is. As it stands, the OP hasn’t stated what his latency is at, so there’s no way to assume that he’s at the limit of his processing power. All I can say is the OP’s computer has a better processor than mine and mine (set to what I recommended) works flawlessly with an audio8 and a latency of 7.8 using 4 standard decks and full FX.