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        General >> 3rd Party >> serious latency issue
        
(Message started by: ian on May 13^th, 2013, 3:38am)

Title: serious latency issue
Post by ian on May 13^th, 2013, 3:38am

Hello;
I've got a serious latency problem. It just started after I installed music signal processing software yesterday (Izotope Stutter; an email to tech support has gone un-replied to, as of yet). The midi/audio delay is about 10 seconds. Yes, seconds, not milliseconds. I didn't have a latency problem before I installed the new software. I think the software changed a midi/MS GS Wavetable Synth setting, or something like that. What do you think? I did a Windows Help search for midi and MS GS Wavetable Synth, but no info was available. Question: Can Midiox help? It is a diagnostic tool, correct? I'm running Win 7 64 bit, quad processor, AMD sound processor, 3.3GHz/ram. My Emu 1x1 USB midi cable driver is up todate, too. My DAW is Ableton 9. AVG and HouseCall scans did not find a virus.
Cheerz
:'( :'( :'( :-* :-*

Title: Re: serious latency issue
Post by Breath on May 14^th, 2013, 2:02am

You can get a rough idea of any Midi delay (especially if it is 10 seconds) by playing and look at how quickly the display of the notes appears in MidiOx.

Have a look the Options/Preferences/Audio tab of Live and make sure the buffer settings haven't been changed.

Check the Audio driver. This would normally be an ASIO driver and have about 128 to 256 Samples for the buffer for a twin core CPU.
Although you can tweak the number of processes and services to give your CPU more time so you can reduce this sample size.

All the best
Royce

Title: Re: serious latency issue
Post by ian on May 16^th, 2013, 12:10am

"Have a look the Options/Preferences/Audio tab of Live and make sure the buffer settings haven't been changed."
- Settings are good.

Thanks for the ASIO suggestion. I installed it and changed the Ableton settings to ASIO.

Still, the enormous latency problem continues. I use an old Yamaha DX9 and sometimes my Korg kaossilator Pro. The long latency is present with the DX9. With the Kaossilaor, there is no latency BUT the midi messages DOUBLE. So if I touch the Korg pad, the outputted sound from a virtual synth on my desktop will play twice!
Now here's the weird(er) thing: my QWERTY keyboard has midi function with some virtual synths. My QWERTY has no latency delay or doubling at all. It works perfectly. The QWERTY is USB only. The DX9/Korg are E-Mu 1x1 USB-to-midi cabled. Therefore my latency problem only seems to occur using the E-Mu. That said, the E-Mu was functioning well until very recently. Yesterday, I reinstalled the E-Mu driver, but that did not solve the problem. What to do?

Title: Re: serious latency issue
Post by Breath on May 16^th, 2013, 1:39am

So without Live running...
DX9->EMu Midi->Midiox
Are you saying that when you press a key the note doesn't appear in MidiOx for 10 seconds?

Plug in the headphones in to the DX9
Does the DX9 play a sound when you press a key with no latency?

Korg->EMu Midi->Midiox
No latency but double notes?

The Midi interface shouldn't be able to distinguish between one controller and another and so the problem should be the same for both.

Uninstall Izotope Stutter and see if the problem is still there.

Royce

Title: Re: serious latency issue
Post by ian on May 17^th, 2013, 6:27am

Hi Royce;
"Are you saying that when you press a key the note doesn't appear in MidiOx for 10 seconds? "
- I'm a noob about MidiOx. I didn't see any input/output in the page functions that I tried in MidiOx. What function window should I be using, and how do I use it? Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place.
"Plug in the headphones in to the DX9
Does the DX9 play a sound when you press a key with no latency?"
- Yes, the DX9 sounds fine, no problem.

"Korg->EMu Midi->Midiox
No latency but double notes?"
- Yes.

"The Midi interface shouldn't be able to distinguish between one controller and another and so the problem should be the same for both."
- Correct, but it is happening, regardless. Bizarre. This latency problem only occurred after I installed Izotope Stutter.

"Uninstall Izotope Stutter and see if the problem is still there."
Yup, I did that. Problem is still there.

Cheerz, I

Title: Re: serious latency issue
Post by Breath on May 17^th, 2013, 9:38am

Hi Ian
"Are you saying that when you press a key the note doesn't appear in MidiOx Input window for 10 seconds? "

Menu option View/Input Monitor this will display what is coming in the Midi Inputs you have selected.
Menu Options/MIDI devices to select the Midi Input and outputs you are interested in.

To connect a Midi Input to a Midi Output use menu View/Midi Port Routing.

Arrange the Port Routing and Input and Output widows and when you close MidiOx it will remember the placement.
This is the basic 3 window setup I mainly use and they are probably the most useful.

Royce

Title: Re: serious latency issue
Post by ian on May 21^st, 2013, 2:56pm

Hi;
I set MidiOx input/output monitoring to Emu 1x1 tab (my usb midi cable). I would like to attach a snip pic to this forum thread for you to see. How do I do that? That said, I don't think it will reveal much. The notes take about 5 -10 seconds to be heard, as I wrote previously. When the note is audible, MidiOx shows the data then, and not before.

Title: Re: serious latency issue
Post by Breath on May 22^nd, 2013, 3:41am

Hi Ian
This problem is likely to be the interface, the driver (I assume you are using this one http://support.creative.com/Products/ProductDetails.aspx?catID=237&CatName=E-MU+%2f+Creative+Professional&subCatID=231&subCatName=MIDI+Keyboards&prodID=19089&prodName=Xmidi+1x1+Tab&bTopTwenty=1&VARSET=prodfaq:PRODFAQ_19089,VARSET=CategoryID:237)
or some setting in the OS.

You did say it was working so what has changed?
Did you remove the newly installed software?
Did you try a system restore?

Check the driver is the one you think it should be.
Go to Device manager (Control Panel/System and Security/Device Manager/Sound, Video and Game Controller) and check the name of the driver and the version.

Royce

Title: Re: serious latency issue
Post by ian on May 22^nd, 2013, 2:44pm

I tried reinstalling the latest Emu midi driver... no change in latency.

1. "You did say it was working so what has changed? - the long latency problem occurred after I installed Stutter.
2. Did you remove the newly installed software? - Yes, 4 days ago, or more.
3. Did you try a system restore?" Yes. No change.
Any more suggestions?
Thank you for helping me. Please keep trying!!!

Title: Re: serious latency issue
Post by Breath on May 22^nd, 2013, 7:52pm

Hi Ian

This is a very strange problem and 10 seconds is a lot of time for a computer to be busy.

I would try to rule things out to narrow the problem.
Can you borrow another (different) Midi interface?
Or can you install you Midi interface on a different PC?
This will rule in/out a failure in the interface itself.

Is the delay the same each time?

Did you try a different USB port for the E-mu? (In XP this will install the drivers again as if it is a new device. Not sure on Win7 64)

You didn't mention the name of the driver in the Device Manager.
How far back was the Restore point?

Royce

Title: Re: serious latency issue
Post by ian on May 22^nd, 2013, 8:58pm

Hi Royce;
I cannot try the Emu tab midi interface on another computer, unfortunately. I'm kind of housebound, a person with disabilities.
It's too bad, because that is a very good suggestion.
"Is the delay the same each time?" I have not timed it exactly, but it seems to be consistent.
System restore? Yes I tired it, but the restore point is very current. I don't have old restore points. I turned off Windows back up (which took up 500GB) but forgot to manually create new restore points every so often
:-[

"Did you try a different USB port for the E-mu?"
- Yes, no help tho.
"You didn't mention the name of the driver in the Device Manager."
- the driver states Emu in Device Manager.

Any more ideas? I really appreciate your help, Royce.

Title: Re: serious latency issue
Post by Breath on May 30^th, 2013, 3:06am

Hi Ian
I have been racking my brain, but this is a mystery.

You might like to look at Native Instruments page on latency tuning, but this is mainly for audio.
Still it might help.
http://www.native-instruments.com/knowledge/questions/847/Windows+7+Tuning+Tips+for+Audio+Processing

Although I loath to suggest it, you may need to plow around in the register looking for things that Izotope may have done.
If you don't have anything from Izotope installed, and that should be the case, make sure that all keys are removed.
ie look for any keys with "Izotope" or "Stutter".

Be warned that unless you know what you are doing you could damage Win7 so much that you may have to do a reinstall.

As a last resort you may need to do a reinstall of Win7.

Best of luck
Royce

Title: Re: serious latency issue
Post by ian on May 31^st, 2013, 6:50am

Thanks Royce. I've been racking my brain too. I have a good uninstaller program that has a "deep clean" function (IObit). So I think the registry is clean. That said, I haven't searched and cleaned my registry ever, so I am interested in how to do it. I'll do a google search and look for instructions. Plus I'll check the Native Instruments info.
Cheers.

Title: Re: serious latency issue
Post by Nicholas on Jun 30^th, 2014, 3:49am

It looks like I might be a little over a year late with an answer, but I've seen this exact same problem with my own E-MU Xmidi 1x1 Tab.

Many seconds of latency is a weird problem! You'll already be a few steps into the debugging process, checking software and hardware settings, when all of a sudden your first test notes start playing. It can be jarring.

What I was eventually able to track down was that the adapter itself was getting into a strange state after being powered on for long periods of time. So this can happen if you have it plugged into a powered USB hub, leave your computer running all the time, or even if your computer's motherboard continues to supply power to its USB ports while shut down (so devices can charge, etc.).

The solution was simply to unplug the adapter for a few seconds so it could really power all the way down. After reconnecting it, the latency was back down to almost zero.

Anecdotal evidence showed that the problem would resume after a day or two of constant power. I eventually got into the habit of leaving the adapter unplugged until the next time I sat down at the keyboard.

If this isn't helpful to Ian, hopefully it will be to someone else that stumbles onto this topic via a search like I did.