Latency question for live tracking

[Henry]

Hello, I am looking to upgrade from SD2 to SD3 and struggling to find information on the interweb regarding round trip latency of SD2 and/or SD3 from e-drums to monitor output with some of the more recent low latency soundcards e.g. The Presonus Quantum thunderbolt card or the newly released Slate VRS8 – also thunderbolt.

I know from experience that USB and Firewire soundcards (except maybe RME which I haven’t tried) just don’t quite have low enough latency at the lowest buffer settings to make live monitoring and tracking of the VSTi with E-drums realistic.

Can Toontrack advise the actual latency of the plug-in itself under various sequencers (preferably windows DAWs), and/or any experiences playing around with this?

I realise that I can monitor the module sounds and track the MIDI, then apply the VSTi to the MIDI later, however we are just trying to remove as many steps in the workflow and post-processsing as possible.

The use case is recording lots of our band’s live work for consumption with minimal post-processing/editing and having the richest monitored sound possible during the tracking to help enhance the performance/enjoyment.

Topic

[John]

Hi,

 

there is no such thing as a specific DAW latency. Latency depends on several factors: your audio interface and it’s drivers (preferably specifically written for the interface), the sample rate and buffer size of your audio interface, the DAW in question’s buffer size, if you have a straight path from input to output in your DAW’s mixer, if there are plugins and/or Automatic Delay Compensation active, etc.

More and more audio interfaces lets you monitor the direct signal while tracking, which can be useful if latency becomes a problem.

I think you need to try one in your specific setup to be sure it works for you.

Apart from the brands you have mentioned there are Focusrite and Universal Audio interfaces to check out.

 

BR,

John

John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[Henry]

Thank you very much for the swift reply. Yes I am aware of all the factors you speak of and have tried live tracking with various USB and FW interfaces that have their own drivers, direct monitoring, etc in both Ptools and Studio one.

My question was more about the SD plugin latency than the DAW itself. What does it add to the soundcard’s RTL? I appreciate that it is not a black and white question.

I guess I am looking for stories of people’s experiences with these new TB soundcards which boast to have ultra low latency, allowing not-seen-before use of plug-ins like SD3 live when tracking e-drums.

Cheers,

H

 

[Author]

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