Midi delay with AKAI MPD16 pad controller
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Posted on Sep 02, 2006 03:04 am
hafler
Member Since: Feb 11, 2006
I just got an AKAI MPD16, a standalone midi pad controller. It has both MIDI and USB out. To test it I hooked it up to Sonar, but there's a problem. There's a slight delay, less than half a second, from when I press a pad to when it is recorded in sonar. I used midi a long time ago with a regular keyboard controller and I never had this problem. This makes it impossible to play over a track, and also impossible to play by itself as it is very discombobulating to hear the note a split second after I play it.
I have a fast computer, I just reformatted it so all clean, no plugins at this point after the format. I have an E-mu 1820m which has a MIDI interface on it. The problem remains whether I use the E-mu midi, or the USB out from the controller.
I've looked around at other forums, and I can't find any real solution.
any help would be appreciated.
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Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Sep 02, 2006 03:48 pm The problem is latency with the E-mu 1820m audio interface. Are you using ASIO drivers? If not that might help a good deal. The 1820 is not known for low latency but you can try and bring the buffer down to maybe 128 and that should give you a lower lag time from hitting the pad to getting the sound.
The blame isnt on the midi itself it is on the sound card. You can look in your audio preferances in Sonar and see what the latency actually is in milleseconds. It sounds like your well over 500 which is not good at all. You need to be down under 30 minimum, 13 to be right on.
I would suggest looking in both the Sonar and E-mu audio preferances and make sure you are not using an emulated driver but are using either WDM or ASIO. And as well look in both to check the buffer setting and bring it down to 128. You can try 256 if you get any noise on playback of multiple tracks.
haflerMember
Since: Feb 11, 2006
Sep 02, 2006 10:06 pm Hey thanks for responding Noize.
The controller has a USB out in addition to the midi out, so it can act as it's own midi interface. The delay problem is the same whether I use the USB or the EMU midi, leading me to believe the problem is not in the Emu.
Plus, I record regular audio just fine, with no latency problems whatsoever.
I experimented with the buffer in Sonar, and the E-MU ASIO latency, and it didn't help the problem, no matter what level I set it at.
I can't even figure out how to use the ASIO drivers with MIDI, it only seems to work with WDM. This would explain why changing the E-mu latency wouldn't help, as the E-mu latency affects ASIO only.
I pretty much have no idea what I'm doing, as I have no idea how to hook up and configure MIDI devices and software.
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Sep 03, 2006 12:24 am Well midi and midi controlers dont introduce latency. Only an audio interface can introduce latency into the chain. What latency is caused by is the delay the audio interface introduces between recieving the message to send the midi note data to the software synth or drum synth, which in turn need to send that out as audio data to be played through the sound card such as the E-mu.
As for the ASIO or WDM drivers themselves. They are for the audio only, not midi. The midi interface portion of the E-mu has seperate drivers all their own. And the USB portion of the controller will again have its own seperate drivers for midi. So on e other thing to check would be to insure those drivers are set up properly, although if your getting midi note data in from both the standard 5 pin midi cable and the USB cable then that should be good.
One other thing to note is to make sure you are not trying to run both the standard midi interface and the USB midi interface at the same time.
You could go into the midi section of your app and make sure there is nothing odd like a delay set up in there. Which is highly unlikely but worth a look.
My best guess is there is a buffer setting that isn't right somewhere in the controls for the E-mu or the software.
WDM and ASIO should be really close as far as the latency they run with. And I'll just point out again that the ASIO drivers will have nothing to do with the midi portion of your gear, so give them a try again and adjust the settings as low as they will go and see what happens.
haflerMember
Since: Feb 11, 2006
Sep 04, 2006 01:19 am Well I guess I figured it out. The delay only happened when I used the microsoft GS wavetable midi or the sonar drum packs. When I switched over to a DXi synth or other virtual outputs there wasn't any delay.
So I guess I'm fine as long as I stay away from certain midi applications.
Thanks for all the input and help Noize, you showed me a lot of stuff I wasn't aware of.
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Sep 04, 2006 01:54 pm I can see why the microsoft GS wavetable did it as it wont play through ASIO or WDM, but I dont understand whe the Sonar drum packs should do it. Dont they load into one of Sonars samplers or something, or are they just loops?
