Sound latency when recording with keyboard

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Sound latency when recording with keyboard

2001-07-02 04:00 am

Hi,
I'm having problems with recording into NWC
with my MIDI keyboard.
When I press a keyboard key, the sound seems to occur
half a second later. This messes up my timing when
I am adding new parts to the existing parts.
Can I adjust this "timing" ?
Thanks!

Re: Sound latency when recording with keyboard

Reply #1 – 2001-07-02 04:00 am

What is your midi playback device? If it's a softsynth, such latency is normal. You can reduce it greatly on the Yamaha soft synthesizers by using the DirectSound port instead of the default wav port (requires DirectX). This is an option in the SoftSynth control panel applet.

Another possibility is to use your external keyboard's device directly, probably the easiest way to do this is to use headphones plugged directly into the keyboard. You might have to set "Local On" if your keyboard has such a thing.

HTH

Fred

Re: Sound latency when recording with keyboard

Reply #2 – 2001-08-24 04:00 am

I took Fred Nachbur's advice (Reply 1) and it worked fine. Probably that got the delay down to the 80 ms Yamaha says is the minimum from the noticeable 480 ms without using Direct X. At 80 ms there is no noticeable delay. If you don't have Direct X or Direct X Media they are free downloads, search for the web site.

Re: Sound latency when recording with keyboard

Reply #3 – 2002-11-29 08:56 pm

Now try downloading DirectX version 8 with the Yamaha SoftSynth. Gets the delay down to zero or near zero! (Probably less than 5ms, at least that's what my PowerTracks studio shows in the audio edit window.

Re: Sound latency when recording with keyboard

Reply #4 – 2014-06-10 07:29 pm

I think this thread is describing my problem (Windows 7, 64-bit and an ageing Yamaha Clavinova CLP 500) but I’ve made progress for the time being by setting the tempo of the piece (to be played on the F4 command) very slow indeed (quarter notes, – crotchets – at 40/min), with note and rest resolution both set at 8th, and with a percussive staff (woodblock) ticking out semi-quavers (16th notes, so 160/min) like a metronome, as a guide. This works for inputting a musical line containing nothing quicker than a quaver. Crotchets at 50/min also works but the accuracy of the result begins to fail at 60/min. It suits me because my piano-keyboard skills are not good and I, as well as the technology, fail at higher speeds!

Re: Sound latency when recording with keyboard

Reply #5 – 2014-06-11 12:20 am

Hi David,
the easiest way around this is to use ASIO. ASIO doesn't like to share so your sound will be limited to NWC (and the keyboard via NWC) for the duration of the session, but I don't think that'll be a problem.

If you don't have inbuilt ASIO supprt, the ASIO4ALL might be the tool to track down.

ASIO allows you to have effectively zero latency. Some time ago I was recording from MIDI keyboard a lot with a guy from my church. We used this all the time, at tempo.

We would get the tempo set and make a click track (percussion staff with rimshots on the snare), play the click track back and record the piano part in, tidy the inevitable glitches that come from human timing problems, not electronic latency, then play that back and he would play the melody in. Finally he would help me identify the chords he was using so I could place them as text. I could have done that bit myself, but it went much faster with the guy who knew the song calling the shots.

This gave me an excellent base on which to:
a) create lead sheets for the rest of the band, and
b) let me create arrangements for my wife on flute and myself on brass (usually 'bone, but sometimes trumpet or Euphonium).

ASIO made it easy because it was all at tempo and there were very few errors to resolve - my mate is very good in his timing.