Music room overhaul - help with latency!

[Cogwhirl]

Hi all,

 

I'm a longtime lurker that's finally bitten the bullet to register as I need some help, so I hope you'll be kind to a newbie

 

One of the areas of our school that's badly in need of help is our Music department. They currently have:

 

• aging i3 machines with 4GB RAM,
  
• Soundblaster Live! soundcards,
  
• M-Audio Oxygen 61 MIDI keyboards connected via USB and
  
• Sibelius 5 and Cubase Essential 4..
  

..all of which just don't cut it anymore. So, I'm looking at boosting them up to an i7 with 16GB RAM, running the same Windows 10 OS they are now, but with the same software (simply because with the machine costs we're unlikely to afford new software too).

 

Now, one of the long-standing issues we've had is that of latency - sometimes we can get the Soundblaster ASIO driver to play ball, sometimes we can't, and even when we can we often find it seems to reset itself. So, I did some reading and was recommended to try to Scarlett 2i2 USB audio interfaces. I bought one to test with and hooked it up both to the machines in the classroom and my own (more powerful) desktop machine, but whatever I try I still get horrible latency. I've read the blog and other posts by ICTDirect_Dave, and he seems to like them a lot, so what am I doing wrong? I've tried using the ASIO drivers that come with the unit as well as some other beta ones I came across, and they both give a huge chunk of latency. I've also tried ASIO4ALL instead, and that always makes any PC I try it on BSOD within a few minutes, so that's a nogo (plus that also has latency).

 

Should I be seeing the Focusrite unit in the Output section for MIDI tracks in Cubase? I only ever see the keyboard (which is pointless as it has no speakers) and the dreaded Microsoft Wavetable Synth. It does pick up the Focusrite and output sound to it though. I've tried entirely disabling the soundcard and onboard sound so only the Focusrite unit is an option for sound, but no joy.

 

What am I missing here? All my googling suggests I have things set up correctly, but for some reason it plain doesn't work for me, and it's no good me overhauling the room with shiny high spec PCs if they're still battling the hardware every lesson..

 

Thanks for any/all advice.

 

Andrew

[ICTDirect_Dave]

Hi Andrew, sounds like you've got a nightmare on your hands.

 

Have you played around with the buffer size in your Software settings? Good drivers will only get you so far, you'll still need to balance how much time you're willing to give your CPU to do the processing required versus how hard you want it to work tog et things out quickly.

As for the focusrite. If you've set it up correctly. Then all audio should pass through the interface. your speakers / headphones should be connected to it and your live inputs should also be connected. MIDI in should come from the M Audio keyboard and midi channels in Cubase should output audio to your speakers via the 2i2.

There will always be some latency, but I'm certain you should see a noticable difference between you i3 and more powerful machine. For super-low latency tracking and monitoring make sure you use the Direct Monitor function on the 2i2.

 

Another thought. Are these machines of yours using spinning hdds or SSDs? At this point, an old HDD can bottleneck a system massively. Having everything on ssd will also help.

[Cogwhirl]

Hi Andrew, sounds like you've got a nightmare on your hands.

 

Have you played around with the buffer size in your Software settings? Good drivers will only get you so far, you'll still need to balance how much time you're willing to give your CPU to do the processing required versus how hard you want it to work tog et things out quickly.

As for the focusrite. If you've set it up correctly. Then all audio should pass through the interface. your speakers / headphones should be connected to it and your live inputs should also be connected. MIDI in should come from the M Audio keyboard and midi channels in Cubase should output audio to your speakers via the 2i2.

There will always be some latency, but I'm certain you should see a noticable difference between you i3 and more powerful machine. For super-low latency tracking and monitoring make sure you use the Direct Monitor function on the 2i2.

 

Another thought. Are these machines of yours using spinning hdds or SSDs? At this point, an old HDD can bottleneck a system massively. Having everything on ssd will also help.

 

Hi Dave,

Thanks for the reply.

 

• I've played with the buffer settings a lot in every ASIO driver I've tried, but it hasn't made much difference.
  
• The music keyboard is USB only, so that's going to the PC. The Scarlett doesn't have a USB-in as I'm sure you know, just the combined XLR or 3/4" jacks. Could this be the reason? I know from googling other folk seem to be using USB music keyboards with less issue.. Headphones are connected to the dedicated port on the front. I've tried asking other schools about what keyboards they use, but they all use USB keyboards with Macs so I'm comparing apples and pears..
  
• There isn't much noticeable difference between the latency on the i3 machines and my desktop (an i5-6400 with 8GB RAM).
  

Edit: Yes, they're on spinning HDDs, but my desktop has an SSD (and the upgraded PCs will definitely have SSDs in!).

Andrew

Edited June 6, 2019 by Cogwhirl

[ICTDirect_Dave]

Sorry, that was my bad. Yes the usb for the midi keyboard should go straight to the PC.

 

So it sounds like things are wired up decently. It could be the age of your software, cubase essential 4 is OLD! I'd look at signing up for a trial of newer software for 30 days. see if it takes advantage of your hardware more efficiently.

 

In the meantime, have you run a hardware monitor whilst using the software to see where your bottlenecks are? It should help you pin down any problems.

[Cogwhirl]

Sorry, that was my bad. Yes the usb for the midi keyboard should go straight to the PC.

 

So it sounds like things are wired up decently. It could be the age of your software, cubase essential 4 is OLD! I'd look at signing up for a trial of newer software for 30 days. see if it takes advantage of your hardware more efficiently.

 

In the meantime, have you run a hardware monitor whilst using the software to see where your bottlenecks are? It should help you pin down any problems.

I did try to sign up for a trial of the latest Cubase, but it seems you can only download it through their software, and it appears to be blocked by our filters or broadband. I'll try downloading the Ableton software you like tomrrow (since the Lite version comes with the Scarlett anyway!) and see if that's any better. I kindof hope it doesn't though, simply because stretching to new software on 25 machines is going to be a big ask..

 

Oh, also.. forgive me for asking a silly question, but when you say "hardware monitor," what do you mean?

 

Thanks for your help, I'll update tomorrow.

 

Andrew

Edited June 6, 2019 by Cogwhirl

[ICTDirect_Dave]

Oh, also.. forgive me for asking a silly question, but when you say "hardware monitor," what do you mean?

Some software that monitors the load on your CPU, Memory and Storage whilst you're using a machine. It'll help you see what parts of your machine are being most taxed during use.

[ZeroHour]

LatencyMon may be worth a look at well: https://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

[Cogwhirl]

Some software that monitors the load on your CPU, Memory and Storage whilst you're using a machine. It'll help you see what parts of your machine are being most taxed during use.

 

OH, you mean like Task Manager.. ok, I thought you might have meant something more complicated Thanks, I'll give it another go today and report back.

 

LatencyMon may be worth a look at well: https://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

 

I'll take a look at this too, thanks.

 

Andrew

[ICTDirect_Dave]

On a side note, I've actually done a new version of my music tech PC blog.

It's been several years so I've taken another look. Sadly, no hidden secrets to attaining zero-latency but hopefully a decent read.

 

You can find it here

[Cogwhirl]

Well, I've tried a couple of things this morning. Firstly, a colleague was able to run an alternative USB MIDI keyboard over to me from another school, so I plugged that in and booted up Cubase - unfortunately, we had the same problems. Still the same latency.

 

So, I downloaded Ableton Live Lite and tried that instead. Once I'd found the driver settings and switched it to the Focusrite ASIO driver.. it seemed fine! The latency is noticeably better, if almost nothing. So, that poses other challenges. Firstly, I can't get the head of music to try it out until next week as she doesn't work Fridays, but assuming she agrees with me about the latency, I then need to assess:

 

 

• If she actually likes the software at all
  
• how many tracks she needs (since the Lite version is limited to 8)
  
• Whether there's room in the budget for purchasing the software to start with
  
• How easy it is to deploy across a network (anyone else done this with Ableton? I have concerns, since it requires an authorisation code..)
  

 

All good fun.. We'll see where Monday takes me!

 

Thanks for all your help, and don't be surprised if I post back next week for software advice

[ICTDirect_Dave]

Glad to hear you're getting somewhere with it

 

Whilst Ableton is my preferred audio software, a new version of cubase would also likely give you a massive improvement.

Edited June 7, 2019 by ICTDirect_Dave
too many alsos

[Cogwhirl]

Glad to hear you're getting somewhere with it

 

Whilst Ableton is my preferred audio software, a new version of cubase would also likely give you a massive improvement also.

 

Yes, you may be right.. I wish I could get the trial to download on our broadband! I'll have to have another go at it as I know Cubase would be preferred. We'll see.

[Jcx500]

Fl Studio is a good daw used it for years and it is fairly priced

[Cogwhirl]

So a little update. I managed to get a manual download of Cubase 10, installed it this morning and.. the latency is still there. But, to make sure I wasn't going insane, I went back into Ableton, and it was absolutely fine! So, I need to chat to the music teacher and see if Ableton could be a replacement..

[synaesthesia]

Go for it. Cubase is the spawn of the devil and the world will be a better place without it! Argh the issues with sound and licensing alone are enough to drive a person mad!

[ICTDirect_Dave]

So a little update. I managed to get a manual download of Cubase 10, installed it this morning and.. the latency is still there. But, to make sure I wasn't going insane, I went back into Ableton, and it was absolutely fine! So, I need to chat to the music teacher and see if Ableton could be a replacement..

 

From experience, Ableton is an incredibly intuitive and rather powerful bit of kit!

A friend of mine from university uses it exclusively and after a decent amount of success now does a lot of his work out of Skywalker Ranch.

I'm not saying that using Ableton guarantees this career path, but it certainly helped my friend

[ModeratelyGruntled]

Ableton is a far more versatile and relevant piece of software than Cubase is nowadays. It's pretty much an instrument in itself for live performances (though you'll want the full/standard version for the looping feature, more tracks and instruments/plugins). Pretty much industry standard in a live context. Way better experience for students than prodding around in Cubase. Factor in its ability to work with video and the way it's designed to keep running even if your PC crashes...