In 'no-latency' a myth? Pro Tools 9 and Superior Drummer

[Monty_python]

Win 7 Pro- 3.16 Duo - 8gbs ram, Pro Tools 9 003 (LE? not HD anyway) on C Drive, Samples on F Drive, audio files on D Drive and Low Latency Recording checked. Getting small latency from Superior Drummer 2. Going to Setup > Playback Engine, then basically setting the minimum in every field (and many combinations of). The new check boxes in PT9 on the Playback Engine are checked and I tried combination of them off as well.

With my buffer @ 64 samples, 2 processors, 90%cpu, Minimum or Level 0 selected for everything else I can get it to sound close. A steady rock beat feels good. When I go into faster playing is when I can feel the latency mess with me and I simply can't play as tight as I normally can.

Which is the answer?
1. Computer specs poor
2. Still need to tweak settings
3. Something I'm not aware of
4. "No Latency" is a myth, at least for Superior Drummer/BFD2

Thanks for your time!
-Monty

[daeron80]

Personally, I've never heard the no-latency myth. But I do know that the only place you get truly zero latency is in the analog world. Conversion from digital to analog takes time, and there's nothing for it. However, it's not very much time - just a couple of milliseconds. It's not usually a serious problem.

As far as settings go, the only one that should affect latency is the hardware buffer setting, as far as I know. The rest have to do with how your computer's resources are allocated for use with PT, and thus, how well your computer performs under load. (As a rule of thumb, you'll get the best performance by setting the number of processors to max minus 1. IOW, if you have a Duo, you should set it to 1 processor. Usually. But whatever works for you.)

I'm guessing that you're playing SD2 from a set of MIDI drum pads or a MIDI keyboard. MIDI itself has inherent latency. When you hit a key or pad, there will be a brief delay inside the hardware unit sending the MIDI signal, another brief delay in your interface handling the MIDI signal and passing it to the processor, and possibly another brief delay in Pro Tools receiving it and passing it to SD2. SD2 then produces the appropriate bitstream and sends it through PT to the interface, which then takes a brief amount of time to convert it to an analog audio signal. From there on, no latency.

You've got an 003 - I assume that's handling both MIDI and audio for you. Being firewire, it should get the job done in around 6 ms roundtrip. That's about as fast as it gets when using VIs.

[Monty_python]

I'm exaggerating with saying 'no-latency', but thank you for your words on it. I'll try 1 processor for a bit and see how it goes in general,thanks! So generically, after my buffer is set, what I hear is the end result for latency for my specific rig is what I'm getting from your post.

I hear people say they play Superior live, maybe they deal with a slight latency. I'll go look for their post and compare my situation with theirs.

Thanks again!
-Monty