Old 03-21-2019, 11:19 AM   #1
Jimmy James
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Default Midi Fader latency

I am kind of a old school guy. Midi is still something new for me. Though I have had a midi keyboard for a year and a half now. This is still futuristic to me. That said...

i have thought about getting a 8 channel midi mixer. I miss being able to reach out and turn knobs and slide faders. I currently have a Nektar Impact LX98+. It has 8 faders on it.
I tried using these to mix. They work, but they have a latency when sliding them. It makes it very easy to overshoot where you want to go.

Is this because it is a inexpensive midi controller? Would buying a $500 midi mixer perform with a higher latency?
Or is this to be expected on all midi controllers?
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Old 03-21-2019, 12:24 PM   #2
Quambo
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Hi. Maybe this is will be off the mark, but am I right in guessing that there is latency to all of the keys and buttons on your controller? And, is the latency only in the audio, or is it in any DAW visual displays as well? I'm guessing it is only the sound, and that's because it's really the sound driver that is slow, not the MIDI.

There might be some exceptions that I don't know of, but one controller shouldn't really have more latency than another. The good news is, the latency is fixable with a driver download, if it's the common thing. Sorry for assuming, but I'm guessing you're on Windows. The following may be similar for a Mac, but I'm not sure.

That is, the driver being used by your sound card or interface, if you haven't addressed this, is probably one that is not designed for low latency sound production, and there is a generic driver that adequately solves this for people just getting started. The thing most people do is install the ASIO4ALL driver. That is what I did when I was using FL Studio and found that my controller had latency.

It is the same in REAPER. In your options, in Devices, there is a setting for sound device driver. Once you download and install ASIO4ALL, you can choose it as the driver (*check to see if it's already there, first). It was created to let the common person's sound card work somewhat like a fast audio interface. You will have ASIO options accessible in REAPER's device options and as an icon in your taskbar when it is being used.

In those options, you want to click and light up the sound device or devices that you are using and the appropriate inputs/outputs. A lot of the time, for me, the DAW will only work properly when only one device is enabled, but it depends on what I am trying to mix and match. I am able to use my PC's integrated soundcard as the main device while using the inputs from my audio interface, and that works, but if I try to also enable inputs from another USB stick, I get no sound from REAPER.

Once you get your devices/inputs selected (no MIDI involved, BTW), then you want to set the buffer size for the devices in the ASIO4ALL panel. This is the setting that determines the latency. At stock settings, it will probably be a lot faster than the standard Windows driver, but lowering the buffer size can make it even faster, but you don't want it to be so fast that your computer can't keep up with it, or it'll crackle. On a fast computer, 88 is a good area to be in, but maybe that's just on mine.

Just so you are aware, a problem that is created by using the ASIO4ALL driver is that when the DAW is open and using the driver with your sound device, all other computer sound except the DAW will not play through the device. It's either ASIO or everything else.

To deal with that, I use a mini USB sound output (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1) and a joiner cable (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1) and I make my PC's sound to go out the USB stick and join the signals together before going to my speakers. It works like a charm, so I can still check out Youtube while in REAPER.

Last edited by Quambo; 03-21-2019 at 12:39 PM.
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Old 03-21-2019, 09:10 PM   #3
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Midi latency in Reaper is intimately tied to audio latency, so you might check that. If you are consistently using the same audio interface, you can type in an offset value (time in #samples or mSec, I can't remember...) in the audio settings that might help.

I can't recommend ASIO4all, but if it works for you, more power to you.
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Old 03-21-2019, 10:39 PM   #4
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Latency usually is not introduced by Midi (as here the processor power and data amount needed is rather small), but by the audio processing (here you need to set the latency high enough to prevent pops and dropouts).

As mentioned above to get low latency you need an appropriate audio interface with a native ASIO driver and powerful enough computer equipment.

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Old 08-09-2019, 12:08 PM   #5
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Hmmm, I worry you guys think I am talking about Audio Latency, I am not. When I am recording I am running 2.6ms of latency with no problems.

When I use a Midi controller, I have no latency playing the keys and such. But the Volume Faders, to control the Volume of tracks in Reaper, those are what have the latency. Nothing else.

Example, I have 8 faders on my controller. And say they are controlling Reaper tracks 1-8. If I reach out and move fader 4, down. There is a latency before the volume moves. Once I have moved it down. The volume is set. When I reach for it again to increase the volume, the volume doesn't change right away as I increase it.

Does this make it seem more clear? I have a buddy that has a controller with 8 faders as well. And he said his does the same thing. Do the 500 dollar mix controllers do this? I know they have "Recall" and maybe that alone fixes the problem. Or do they all do this?
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Old 08-09-2019, 03:19 PM   #6
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That doesn’t sound normal.

Reaper responds almost instantly to the controls on my $99 Arturia MiniLab.
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Old 08-11-2019, 03:01 PM   #7
Jimmy James
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lunker View Post
That doesn’t sound normal.

Reaper responds almost instantly to the controls on my $99 Arturia MiniLab.
Does that have Faders on it? Or just rotary knobs? All the rotary respond right away. Only the faders have latency
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Old 08-11-2019, 05:45 PM   #8
preferred.nomenclature
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy James View Post
Or just rotary knobs? All the rotary respond right away. Only the faders have latency
This isn’t normal. If this is true irrespective of what they’re assigned to (ie. rotary assigned to volume is instantaneous, fader assigned to volume lags), then you definitely have a hardware issue on your hands.
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Old 08-11-2019, 05:50 PM   #9
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To put it another way, Reaper has no idea if you’re turning a knob or sliding a fader or using laser beams to generate these CC messages.
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