Topic by audiovox

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Topic: Help choosing a sound card

Hello all,

I have a midi keyboard, and I want to use it with Pianoteq in real time.

I am running WinXP.  It's a P4 with about 2 gigs of ram.

I have tried doing this in the past.  However, there is about a half second of delay before I hear the sound.  I am using ASIO4ALL, and the sample rate is set to as low as I can get it before the sound starts breaking up.

So I need a new soundcard.  It can be internal or external.  I would GREATLY appreciate any advice from anyone who is using a midi keyboard with Pianoteq and experiencing minimal latency with their current hardware.

TIA!

Reply by skip

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Re: Help choosing a sound card

An internal interface will usually have lower (better) latency than USB, and I suspect this is especially the case  on a slow system such as your P4.  The M-Audio Audiophile 2496 is a simple one that seems to have a good reputation.  This is a PCI card.

I read somewhere that USB latency has been improved in Windows 7, so if this is true, and you'd prefer USB, then it might worthwile considering an upgrade to Windows 7.

I have a USB audio/MIDI interface, and there is objectionable latency when I use it on my P4 WinXP system. (I suspect the latency was on the MIDI side)   This same system also has an internal PCI audio interface (with MIDI on the motherboard), and this works fine.  However, a different brand/model of USB device may work fine on this system - who knows.  If I ever install Windows 7 on this machine, I'm curious to test USB again to see whether it's any better.

Greg.

Last edited by skip (07-01-2011 06:02)

Reply by skip

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Re: Help choosing a sound card

I remembered that when I was using a USB audio/MIDI interface on my P4 machine, I had noticed some arpeggiation. This arpeggiation did not occur when using the PCI interface.

So I decided to do a quick test. I recorded myself repeatedly playing a simple two-note octave repeatedly, on my Win7 based netbook, and my WinXP based desktop. I used Pianoteq on both machines to record the MIDI, and I used the same settings on both machines. I used the same USB/MIDI interface on both machines. (an M-Audio Fast Track Ultra). 

I can hear a difference. The Win7 netbook doesn't seem to produce any noticable arpeggiation, whereas the WinXP desktop does. There are LOTS of possible reasons for this, including my playing. So, I offer this test FWIW, which may not be very much at all. ;^)  The desktop is a few years old, and the netbook is brand new.

Windows 7 netbook (1.66Ghz dual core N450 Atom processor)  http://www.forum-pianoteq.com/uploads.p...0_Win7.mid

Windows XP desktop (2.4Ghz P4) http://www.forum-pianoteq.com/uploads.p..._WinXP.mid

Greg.

Reply by tb303

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Re: Help choosing a sound card

Hi Tia,

I am using a laptop (Lenovo t500 - 2.53 gz with 2 gids Ram). I bought an external usb soundcard (Tascam US122-mkII) and I had run pianoteq with minimal latency (2 ms) on both XPsp3 and Windows 7 (I upgraded to Windows 7 because I am also running a large sample piano library and I heard latency was less of an issue via usb on windows 7).
I had previously been using an M-Audio Fast Track pro soundcard (External usb) but had too many problems getting it to work on my XP machine so I gave it up for the Tascam). I have had absolutely no issues with the Tascam and I have minimal latency also on my sampled piano library. Hope this helps,

Good Luck,

Niles

Reply by azrael4

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Re: Help choosing a sound card

Hi!
I had always best results with this... http://www.rme-audio.de/products_hdspe_aio.php

They have many solutions and real good asio drivers.

heinke

http://www.heinke-aussenegg.com/

azrael4's Website

Reply by grimborg

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Re: Help choosing a sound card

Have you tried reducing the buffer?

Also, try GNU/Linux. I have a 1.6GHz computer and I can play in realtime. Try downloading the last Ubuntu (or Ubuntu Studio) live CD: you don't even need to install it, you can run it off the CD and check if it works for you. If you do try this, check the README_LINUX.txt file in the Pianoteq folder and do what it says there: it makes all the difference.

Good luck!

Reply by olepro

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Re: Help choosing a sound card

Are you shure you are not using the Asio4all multimedia driver ?
It should be much much less than half a second if you are using the right Asio4all driver

olepro's Website

Reply by bebop603

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Re: Help choosing a sound card

I have this one and I'd recommend this one for low latency and sound quality. You have to have an expresscard slot, though.  I also run the line-out through an external heaphone amp.


http://www.echoaudio.com/Products/Expre.../index.php

audiovox wrote:

Hello all,

I have a midi keyboard, and I want to use it with Pianoteq in real time.

I am running WinXP.  It's a P4 with about 2 gigs of ram.

I have tried doing this in the past.  However, there is about a half second of delay before I hear the sound.  I am using ASIO4ALL, and the sample rate is set to as low as I can get it before the sound starts breaking up.

So I need a new soundcard.  It can be internal or external.  I would GREATLY appreciate any advice from anyone who is using a midi keyboard with Pianoteq and experiencing minimal latency with their current hardware.

TIA!

Pianoteq 5, Dell Studio 14 (core i3 2.26 ghz), M-Audio Uno midi connector, Echo Indigo Djx (expresscard), Little Dot MK V Headphone Amp, Senn 580 Headphones, Kawai MP9000 digital piano

Reply by Michael H

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Re: Help choosing a sound card

bebop603 wrote:

I have this one and I'd recommend this one for low latency and sound quality. You have to have an expresscard slot, though.  I also run the line-out through an external heaphone amp.


http://www.echoaudio.com/Products/Expre.../index.php

Assuming you have a laptop audiovox, there is also the Echo Indigo for PCMCIA slot computers such as those often found on Pentium 4's. I have one of those and it's excellent as well. By the way, you really should be able to get acceptable latency with the ASIO4ALL driver. Perhaps you should see if your laptop is varying the processor speed. If so you should set it to constant full speed, and for that you can use a free application like SpeedSwitchXP.

Michael

Last edited by Michael H (20-04-2011 00:02)