Siamey Posted June 26, 2008 Share Posted June 26, 2008 I understand that most of the latency comes from the buffer settings on your dsp, or having a non ASIO card etc, but if you had a nice external ASIO setup, and had the choice between hooking up your master keyboard through usb midi (directly into your comp) or regular midi cables (hooked directly into the external audio/midi interface that i talked about), which would be ideal? Yes I know its probly a trivial 2ms or something but I'm curious. This is probly a question for someone who knows what the latency of a usb process on the cpu is, and how many more layers of OS bs is added on through usb. anyshwas, thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kanthos Posted June 27, 2008 Share Posted June 27, 2008 I use both when I play live (not enough USB ports, so one keyboard goes through USB and the other through MIDI), and I don't notice a difference either way. Really, it's the speed of your sound card drivers that make the difference; USB is probably faster but not enough that it'd really be noticeable unless you already have considerable lag. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yoozer Posted June 27, 2008 Share Posted June 27, 2008 Is this really the question you want to ask, or do you have some issues with your current MIDI over USB? http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Oct04/articles/qa1004-7.htm?print=yes answers your question Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wiesty Posted June 27, 2008 Share Posted June 27, 2008 Im guessing that midi would be faster, seeing how it is more of an analog signal and is more basic of a language than converting midi to a digital signal through a device which requires drivers for it to take place. (please tell me if im wrong, im just hypothesizing) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tgfoo Posted June 27, 2008 Share Posted June 27, 2008 I've never noticed any difference what so ever between my controllers midi going in threw USB or throw a traditional midi interface. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jago Posted June 27, 2008 Share Posted June 27, 2008 Im guessing that midi would be faster, seeing how it is more of an analog signal and is more basic of a language than converting midi to a digital signal through a device which requires drivers for it to take place. (please tell me if im wrong, im just hypothesizing) If straight MIDI is faster compared to MIDI-USB, it's so miniscule that one wouldn't even notice. I've been using MIDI-USB with my laptop using a Korg X5DR hardware synth, and the latency is practically non-existent as if I was using only MIDI. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yoozer Posted June 27, 2008 Share Posted June 27, 2008 Im guessing that midi would be faster, seeing how it is more of an analog signal MIDI sends hexadecimal codes and has a maximum speed comparable with a 33k6 modem. USB 1.0 transmits at 12 mbits. Conversion can be really really fast - so fast it can happen at 192khz if it's analog to digital - but since MIDI is not analog in any way (or in that sense, not more analog than the zeroes and ones over the USB cable)... The issue is however that USB is clueless about the nature of timing required by MIDI, and if you're copying anything from an external USB drive or harddisk, going a bit slower one time and going a bit faster the next isn't going to kill anything. With MIDI, even with its glacial speed, timing is essential, therefore the inventions of Linear Time Base and Active MIDI Timing (used and dumped by Steinberg and Emagic, now Apple, respectively). Any keyboard with an USB output has the translation stuff built in. What's sent over the wire are still the same messages. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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