ampsim and latency am I missing something

thequietroom · 10-09-2014, 09:20 AM

I just got a new DAW i74790 8gig ram win7 pro and i thought id try out some ampsims again..

I tried sims in standalone EZmix2 and Sgear

While latency is improved some over my old core 2 duo box, I still have pretty significant latency. Im getting 6.2ms in and 12.6ms out as its reported

Im using the pod HD bean as interface, and just nothing in the patch so I think its just a DI signal. The POD ASIO driver is set to 128 buffers (lowest it will go) and the other buffer slider is set to the lowest setting.

One thing that seems strange to me is no matter what I set up in the soft som its the same latency.. for example in Sgear.. i can stip it down to just the amp and one cab.. or i can add stereo FX and duel cabs etc.. no change

I would think the extra processing would affect it. It seems to just be locked into this latency..

Am I missing something? I keep reading about folks getting super low latency but I cant get it.

Is it a limit of my pod driver? or am I doing something wrong?

If anyone hs any ideas Id appreciate

RunBeerRun · 10-09-2014, 10:08 AM

Sounds like a limitation of the Pod driver, as far as I know all you can do is use its control panel and adjust buffer size, Reaper has buffer size adjustments in prefs outside the main soundcard's control panel, but I think that's just an override, and doesn't add anything new.

While it's not really recommended, you can probably use the Pod with Asio4all and get lower latency while still maintaining stability.

zeekat · 10-09-2014, 10:01 PM

Yeah I've never went lower than 6/12ms on Line6 drivers for POD GX too, their ASIO isn't the fastest - they're reserving their lowest latencies for their own POD Farm app that's somehow faster than pure ASIO when monitoring through it. Maybe POD HD has it's own app that does exactly that?

Don't get all crazy about ASIO4ALL reported latencies - reported numbers are great but measured ones were about as long as the above mentioned, at least in my case.

thequietroom · 10-10-2014, 02:13 AM

I used my fast track pro and am getting less than 8ms total. Ive had that thing years and just figured out that 1/4 in inputs are the middle of the xlr inputs. Must be the line 6 driver. Also the di signal sounds different than through the pod. I finally experiences s gear fully playable and its pretty damn nice.

henge1 · 10-10-2014, 05:14 AM

Also the pod has to do it's own AD/DA before spitting out the signal to your interface. So that's two 1.5 rounds of conversion as opposed to just going straight into the fast track.
One thing that I'm liking going straight into s-gear is have a compressor in line. I'm using a wa76 on the way in and it seems to make s gear even beefier!

thequietroom · 10-10-2014, 11:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by henge1

Also the pod has to do it's own AD/DA before spitting out the signal to your interface. So that's two 1.5 rounds of conversion as opposed to just going straight into the fast track.
One thing that I'm liking going straight into s-gear is have a compressor in line. I'm using a wa76 on the way in and it seems to make s gear even beefier!

When I tried the pod it was direct into the pc via usb but the output latency was over 12ms. Also the lowest samples I could pick was 128. It just doesn't seem like its good for using as a plane jane guitar interface for software amps. The fast track pro goes down to 64 samples and latency is symmetrical right around 4

I'm glad I can finally try the soft amps proper. I love the sound of the s gear. I'm not completely sold on the wayfarer for my play style. It sounds great but the pick attack isn't super articulate no matter what I tweak. It feels like several tube amps I've played. Maybe it needs like a screamer or something like it in front. Sort of the same thing with leads.. I cant quite get the pick chirp i'm looking for on fast picking. I use a fuzz pedal in the pod to get it.

There is no doubt though that sgear sounds awesome

Tony-N · 10-10-2014, 12:56 PM

POD Driver's aren't that great when it comes to latency, at least to my experience.

I can use 32 samples with my Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6 and that is actually quite nice to play with. It can't really compete with hardware of course, where it's possible to reach a latency you don't notice, but it's definitely good enough for me most of the time.

S-Gear is great, I bought it a while ago and it's currently my favourite amp sim to play with, very inspiring and dynamic. If Mike would make a hardware version of S-Gear, I'd buy it instantly.

burak · 10-10-2014, 01:15 PM

I use S-Gear, if I'm recording in the DAW, with TC Electronic Konnekt 6 at 64 samples, it works great for me.

JHA · 10-10-2014, 09:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thequietroom

The POD ASIO driver is set to 128 buffers (lowest it will go) and the other buffer slider is set to the lowest setting.

One thing that seems strange to me is no matter what I set up in the soft som its the same latency.. for example in Sgear.. i can stip it down to just the amp and one cab.. or i can add stereo FX and duel cabs etc.. no change

I would think the extra processing would affect it. It seems to just be locked into this latency..

The latency is fixed because it's locked to the sample rate you're using.

witti · 10-11-2014, 04:17 AM

I'm using the ToneportGX. The GX ASIO driver is set to 128 buffers at 44100Hz and the other buffer slider is set to the lowest setting...which causes crackles here and there. The DPC Latency checker shows me that my system should be able to handle real-time streaming of audio fine. The reported latency is ~5.1ms input and ~10ms output. But because of the crackles i tried asio4all and experimented with the settings. After making a couple of roundtrip-latency-tests i've set the asio4all driver to a buffersize of 128 and 128 samples input and 208 samples output. I get slightly lower latency and the crackles are gone. (5.8ms input, 7.6ms output) Miracles do happen...

From my experience the line6 drivers are crap. Will buy another interface as soon as possible.

Stringer · 10-11-2014, 05:59 PM

I am getting occasional pops running S-Gear standalone through a Focusrite Scarlett 18i8 at 6ms, even with S-Gear in econ mode. It also happens with Guitar rig 4, and when I play through Reaper. I have done all the tweaking I can find on the web including the tweaks recommended by Focusrite, Native Instruments, and others. Latency Mon and DPC both say everything is fine, but I still get pops. It is a Dell Win 7 machine with an i5 and 12 gigs of ram. I am beginning to think that USB 2.0 interfaces just don't cut it. I never had these problems on my XP machine with a Delta 44 in it. Of course, that machine was built by Jim Roseberry at Purrrfect Audio. I should have bought another machine there.

I cant think of anything else to do. Maybe try Asio4all? Maybe the Focusrite drivers are no good?

ivansc · 10-12-2014, 01:37 AM

I had major issues with focusrite USB drivers.
Initially I was running a saffire6 (USB1.1) on an old core duo and it behaved just fine. Ran at 64 buffer all day long.
Bought an i5 laptop and never ever got either the saffire6 or the 214 that replaced it to run properly.
Something about the combination of my hardware and Focusrites drivers.
I gave up and bought an RME babyface and everything just worked.
Expensive but worth every penny.
I also have a very very old HDSP9652 in the studio machine - pci but still working perfectly on an i7 and Win 8.1!
RME drivers are sooooo good.

Oh and I also have a selection of Pods & a UX1. Latency on them is pretty much what you get. Dont like the conversion either, so basically they used to act as a dongle for PodFarm, but I dont use that any more since I got S-Gear and Revalver.

Sadly with USB and ASIO it seems like you really do get what you pay for unless you just happen to have a magic combination of computer, drivers and interface.

whiteaxxxe · 10-12-2014, 02:06 AM

I use a lot of Line6-gear and there is no latency issue. all Line6 apparatschiks have a zero-latency monitor out. why dont you use that? in fact you can set your buffers to have 500ms latency, doesnt matter but your CPU enjoys it. :-))

ivansc · 10-12-2014, 03:37 AM

How does that work as far as hearing the other tracks and the effects you have set up in Reaper? I never found a way to hear what I was recording in Reaper unless all I heard direct was the plain vanilla Pod sound over the existing tracks..
...and doing it that way, latency was still an issue.

witti · 10-12-2014, 03:52 AM

Never liked their amps so i've only the driver installed. The driver alone, without the gearbox, is what i would call crap.
With the lowest possible settings i get crackles. And the lowest setting is a buffersize of 128 samples, which is still fairly high if you ask me. So in the future i will try something different.

Stringer · 10-12-2014, 12:01 PM

OK, this is weird. I recorded a track in Reaper through Guitar Rig 4 using the Focusrite 18i8. Mixcontrol is set to 4 ms, but it actually doesn't seem to matter. I heard some clicks. When I play it back, I don't hear those clicks, but I hear clicks in other places. It seems to be having trouble with playback, but not recording. Both ESET and Wifi were disabled.

I can go all the way to 1 ms. It doesn't seem to matter; I get about the same amount of clicking. I have tried moving USB ports. I even tried the 3.0 ports. I am baffled.