A longstanding problem with MIDI latency

[bridude2001]

I have looked around here and even tho I know this subject has been addressed from various anglesI'm not sure my particular issue has been dealt with. The thing is when I set my buffers low enough, ie 128 is usually good enough, I have no trouble playing in my parts accurately, that is they feel good while playing them in, no problematic lag at all. The problem is, when playing them back, they are always behind where I placed them. This lag is not apparent until I listen back. This happens with virtually any plug I use, whether it is MachFive 2, Kontakt 4,or CPU hungry Omnisphere or Trillian. Makes no difference-they all play fine and all sound behind the beat on playback. I am running an early 2008 8 core MacPro 2.8 ghz ram with 18 gb ram, MTP AV, audio interface is Apogee Ensemble, running DP 7.24 (whatever the last vsn is,)still using OS 10.58 (I am about to upgrade to SL, yes I know this is ridiculous at this point, just had problems in the past with being an early adopter-now I'm having problems being an extremely late adopter -lol!) while I am going to upgrade my OS, I doubt this will fix the issue. Or will it?

So, any ideas with regards to this long standing issue?

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Up until last year at this time I was also on Leopard 10.5.8 on a lowly G5 with 4GB RAM (I tend to be a late adopter as well). Once I set the buffer to a comfortable level (usually 512, multiplier 1, high priority) I didn't see these issues very often. I was using a MOTU MIDI Express 128 at the time.

If possible, I'd suggest trying a different MIDI interface to see if that is where the lag is. Also, be sure all your MIDI drivers are up to date.

If you're not already doing it, you might also try using a utility like Onyx to clean out caches and be sure that the maintenance routines are run if you are not leaving your Mac on 24/7. I'm NOT suggesting you leave it on. I never do but you can run this from the widgets every so often and get the same routines at will.

The link above leads you here:

http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboar ... idget.html

[bridude2001]

Hey thanks for that. I am running latest drivers and I really have a hard time believing its te MTP.
Don't have an extra MIDI interface but will consider purchasing one of all else fails. I think I have Onyx utility. Haven't run it in a long time. I have never understood the multipliers. Have tried different settings in the past. Have been on 3 with high priority lately. Maybe I should put it back to 1?

[MIDI Life Crisis]

You can search for "multiplier" in the forum. These are tricky and maybe a more informed member can enlighten us both. I think it has to do with how many interfaces you are using. If one, then 1.

[bayswater]

Is this a delay between MIDI and audio, or MIDI and the timeline? There is a setting to fine tune delay offsets to improve the alignment between audio and MIDI. There is a description in the Getting Started guide, the section on configuring audio devices on pages 26-27 for DP8, and probably thereabouts for earlier versions.

[HCMarkus]

Try un-checking "Sync Recorded MIDI to Patch Thru" in the "MIDI Solo & Patch Thru" Preference.

[bridude2001]

Thanks, I will try the things you guys suggested and get back to you to let. You know if I succeeded.

[bridude2001]

By the way baywater,

It is a delay between MIDI input using VIs and MIDI data in the timeline and since I am using VIs I suppose it could be an audio timing issue. I haven't tried it but will play with the fine tune audio timing. The odd thing is, I haven't noticed any problem with acoustic sources being delayed on playback, even when I set the buffer really high. So I would probably have to return that to zero when recording acoustic sources.

Since I'm using Apogee Ensemble and not a MOTU audio interface, a motu tech just told me I dont have the option to turn on direct hardware monitoring, that I must monitor thru effects. I think he has to be wrong about that because in the old days when I tried monitoring thru effects with my 896, the delay when monitoring thru effects was so bad as to be completely useless. I am guessing ensemble has their own way of circumventing that issue because monitoring is dead on accurate (and I can't use effects when inputting from acoustic sources.)

[bayswater]

In that case, I guess HC has the best answer.

I expect what the tech at MOTU means is that you can't use Direct Hardware monitoring in the exact way that MOTU defines it. But DH monitoring is simply a means of echoing the input stage of your audio interface directly to its output so you hear what you're playing it without noticeable latency. It's basically the same thing as monitoring from the mixer when using MOTU boxes.

[bridude2001]

That's what I figured. Well, I have had the time to try that but will give his suggestion a go and report back with my results. Thanks for all the input.