Virtual drums latency

[Codo]

Dear forum.

Recording drums with top of the line Roland trigger pads, I´d like to ask this:

1) Which virtual drum software makes the shortest latency? (Addictive, Battery, Superior, Mixosaurus, Kontakt etc.)?

2) During recording, will it make any difference how my delay compensation engine is set, if there is no other plug ins loaded at all, except for the virtual drum plugin?

3) On this HD system, will it matter what my HW buffersize is set during the above recording, concerning latency on my drums?

PT HD 9
MacPro 3.1, 8*2,8GHz 16Gb RAM
PT HD Accel 3

[[email protected]]

I can tell you that I have recorded numerous Roland midi sessions w/ PT8.05 on my laptop and have imported all midi tracks into my PT HD system with no latency issues (triggering BFD2). ADC and H/W buffer play well together.

I would suggest editing final midi preformance and print final drum audio afterwards. Slip audio if necessary....

-SteveB.

[Rail Jon Rogut]

With BFD2 and Superior Drummer 2.0 using our libraries there is no latency between the MIDI and the VI's.

You will have to set up your system with a very low buffer size to have your artist perform without latency... this is independent of the VI's.

What we do, since PT isn't reliable on our system with a buffer setting of 32 samples:

We use BFD2 Standalone or Superior Drummer 2.0 in Solo using an MAudio Conectiv with a 32 or 64 samples buffer setting. On the same system we run the Pro Tools session and feed the audio out of the Conectiv into the 192. We create a MIDI Track in PT and record the MIDI and the stereo drum mix into PT for reference. The MIDI will trigger the standalone VI and also be recorded in PT simultaneously.

This way we:

a) Have a separate address space for the VI outside the PT 32 bit address space limitation

b) We can have the PT buffer size at 256 or 512 so PT plays and records reliably

c) We can have the VI buffer set to 32 or 64 samples and play back reliably.

After recording you can instantiate the VI in PT and use the recorded MIDI to trigger it.

We use a Yamaha DTX950K kit via USB.

Cheers,

Rail

[Hercules]

You will get latency from the Roland module and from the VST.

If you don't believe me try a test - record the pad strike with a microphone on one track, record the analog outs on another track and record MIDI on a third track - then expand out the tracks and look at the strike points.

Rail's process is excellent but if you want your tracks precisely in time (i.e. as the drummer places the beat) you will need to slip them.

[Codo]

First of all, thanks for replying.

On my PT HD-TDM 9.0.5 i could set buffer as low as 128 when running VI (SD2) internally. I didn´t go lower.
I did not succeed opening VI standalone along with PT having both using the audio HW Maybe I am not using the correct driver? I´ll ask in another thread.

Because it´s still not working as well as recording while listening to the awful sounds of my Roland VD12 and saving the MIDI in PT. It may sound akward, but the latency was worst with my toms. I could tell from recording same rythms using the VD12 compared using SD2. My hits on the toms all were placed a little ahead all other hits in the editor, when I used SD2 with different samplebanks...

So, for now, I´ll try to get help using standalone along with PT HD-TDM, seeing if a few millisecs will make VI´s more useful during recording.

[Rail Jon Rogut]

Originally Posted by Codo

First of all, thanks for replying.

On my PT HD-TDM 9.0.5 i could set buffer as low as 128 when running VI (SD2) internally. I didn´t go lower.
I did not succeed opening VI standalone along with PT having both using the audio HW Maybe I am not using the correct driver? I´ll ask in another thread.

Reread my post - you need to use a separate device/driver for Standalone which has a low buffer available... As I mentioned we use the MAudio Conectiv with the buffer set to 32 or 64 samples.

Rail

[Codo]

I did notice your setup. I wasn´t sure if it was necessary to do so. But I can tell from your reply, that I better forget running other apps along with PT. I will check the latency on my old NI Kontrol, see if it works.

Thanks for telling me