Latency Help PLEASE

limey ere uglydog mate’’‘if yer want less truble wiv midi ‘’‘i use a midi keyboard fer inputtin ta the pc n a rack o’ midi sound generatin modules fer ouput’’’‘fer midi tracks i use a gonzo fab sequencer frum pg music powertracks its called n its blinkin cheap n yer can do loadsa midi tracks n scorin n gobsa other stuff’’‘blinkin nice combo usin big n an powertracks cos i can do any production i want mate’’’ n powertracks got lots gonzo midi editin capabilities’’’’ :D :D

right on y’all. this has helped tremendously. it also let me know that i’m at least thinking about this correctly and am not a complete idiot :D
Ali, let me know what M-Audio says

I wouldn’t say “all software synths have latency but some are worse than others.” It’s true, but it’s also true that all hardware synths have latency. Everything under the sun has latency, witht he possible exception of a golddigger when your money’s run out.

There are lots and lots of great software synths with negligible latency. But that MS Wavetable synth is NOT one of them – it’s horrible. As you’ve noticed. It’s terrible. Worse that that golddigger, latency or no.

The SBLive should be the ticket – plug that puppy back in, make sure you’ve selected it as your MIDI output device, and away you go. You’ll amaze your friends, put fear in the hearts of your enemies, and meet girls!

i will be sticking it back in tonight. firewire wil be coming shortly thereafter.

Yep I still have my SB Live in my PC
I don’t use it for audio anymore and just use it’s internal synth for midi.

Works well along side my Edirol DA2496 without any problems

yeah i agree with the firewire/usb deal. i spoke to a few people in town today and they all agreed with the midi synth as the main focus of my issue. i either need to find the best synth possible or go external and use modules, which i may end up doing in the end.

FYI - I played with the sfz soundfont and NSKit samples today and they really work well. You can create a very convincible drum sound with the two. If my latency issue gets solved 100%, i will pound out the drum patter on a drum controller pad (roland SPD-6) into general midi. 1 channel for each drum sound (i.e. channel 1 = kick, 2 = snare, etc) then assign each channel to a channel within the sfz with the appropriate .wav file from NSKit.
Make Sense?

Later

Gee, maybe things have changed. Not too long ago, USB was just no good for more than a handful of inputs. Of course, bandwidth on older USB is the obvious reason, but for some reason, folks had trouble with USB 2.0 devices as well – at least, more often than with Firewire, if anecdotal evidence is any gauge.

Also, it used to be the case that a number of MOBOs just wouldn’t support audio over USB. Folks were talking about that just a year or two ago. If you have an older MOBO, don’t assume USB will work for you. Make sure you buy where you can return if it doesn’t work out on your system.

But, as I said that’s old news – a year or two ago, when USB 2 was still pretty new. Maybe things are better now.

Define MOBO - not a term I am familiar with

MOBO means motherboard.

Midi won’t require much bandwidth at all (hence the tiny midi files you can download off the internet).

Audio on the other hand does require a lot of bandwidth particularly if you are wanting more than a couple of I/O’s.

Plus a USB soundcard is going to be affected by other USB devices you have on the USB controller as well as the mobo as Jeff mentioned.

Firewire soundcards don’t seem to have the mobo hit and miss compatibility issues that USB do. With USB it is more specifically the USB controller chip they are using (and how compatible that s with your soundcard) - you can buy a PCI USB card and put that in your machine to get a different controller chip, but that may be more hassle than it’s worth…

So a USB midi interface should perform well
USB audio interface on the other hand is more of a hit and miss affair

Rich