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Just when I thought I was out—they pull me back in! So, I've had my travails in getting my KeyStation 88 to work with my Win10/SoundBlaster Z set up, but I finally have it where the sound works, works pretty consistently and at a reasonable volume. It also doesn't lag...much...at first! (Read in William Shatner's voice for best effect.) But...slowly...the lag appears...begins to embiggen...and pretty soon, I'm wondering if I've gone mad, or if I've gone sane in a mad world. (It IS actually, kind of funny, as I play slower and slower because the notes are coming out slower.) Actually, I think now (I've been mulling this for a few days) it's always a little laggy. I had a better pianist than I come in try it and she noticed immediately. It seems better or worse from moment to moment but I can't nail it down. So...how to troubleshoot this? These are my MIDI settings: - My MIDI Input Driver is "Keystation 88". That's the only thing I've found that works.
- My MIDI Output Driver is Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth or Microsoft MIDI Mapper.
- My Synthesizer/Sound card is Coyote WaveTable DXI. (I can use any of the others apparently; I haven't figured out the significance of this. Though it doesn't seem to matter vis a vis the lag.)
- I've checked Use VSTi/DXi synth.
- I've checked Route MIDI thru to MIDI driver.
- My GM2 Support is General MIDI 2 (GM2) support.
- Audio Settings are ASIO always.
1) If I exit BiaB and come back, the lag reduces, but never actually goes away AFAICT. 2) I'm using ASIO4All. 3) I can use the SBZ driver, too, but that doesn't seem matter much. 4) I set the quality settings to "Fast" 5) If I click the "Get from soundcard" button at any time, BiaB crashes. I am open to any solution to removing lag. Hardware/software/whatever.
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What are your computer specs? Ram? CPU speed? HD speed? etc
Does the slow down also happen in RB or any other DAW or music device?
Are there tempo changes in the song?
If there are no tempo changes and the song starts out OK but then slows down it sounds like you are pushing something to the limit. Maybe the CPU, sound card, RAM, HD, etc but without the computer spec information it is hard to many any conclusion.
Love is grand.
Divorce is twenty grand!
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
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Just when I thought I was out—they pull me back in! So, I've had my travails in getting my KeyStation 88 to work with my Win10/SoundBlaster Z set up, but I finally have it where the sound works, works pretty consistently and at a reasonable volume. It also doesn't lag...much...at first! (Read in William Shatner's voice for best effect.) But...slowly...the lag appears...begins to embiggen...and pretty soon, I'm wondering if I've gone mad, or if I've gone sane in a mad world. (It IS actually, kind of funny, as I play slower and slower because the notes are coming out slower.) Actually, I think now (I've been mulling this for a few days) it's always a little laggy. I had a better pianist than I come in try it and she noticed immediately. It seems better or worse from moment to moment but I can't nail it down. So...how to troubleshoot this? These are my MIDI settings: - My MIDI Input Driver is "Keystation 88". That's the only thing I've found that works.
- My MIDI Output Driver is Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth or Microsoft MIDI Mapper.
- My Synthesizer/Sound card is Coyote WaveTable DXI. (I can use any of the others apparently; I haven't figured out the significance of this. Though it doesn't seem to matter vis a vis the lag.)
- I've checked Use VSTi/DXi synth.
- I've checked Route MIDI thru to MIDI driver.
- My GM2 Support is General MIDI 2 (GM2) support.
- Audio Settings are ASIO always.
1) If I exit BiaB and come back, the lag reduces, but never actually goes away AFAICT. 2) I'm using ASIO4All. 3) I can use the SBZ driver, too, but that doesn't seem matter much. 4) I set the quality settings to "Fast" 5) If I click the "Get from soundcard" button at any time, BiaB crashes. I am open to any solution to removing lag. Hardware/software/whatever. Your problem is self inflicted. You are using 2 soundcards. One for input ... the KS88 and then you use the MS wavetable as the output. You really need to find ONE interface/card, which can support both in and out from the same card. I'd lay a bet that there is no clock sync between the 2 cards you are using. Since they both run at approximately the same clock speed, they start at the same time but the non-synced clocks soon start to wander out of sync and there you have it. The further you go, the worse it gets. Sound blaster cards can be made to work in some, perhaps even many cases but are not the ideal recording card to be using. That's why many folks have bought and use a third party external dedicated musical interface. I have a Focusrite Saffire to handle all of my musical input and output duties. It works exceptionally well. The only solution is to get, obtain, buy, beg, borrow, or steal, a decent interface that will permit you to do input and output of both audio and midi from the same card. Focusrite, M-Audio, Presonus, are all good options and will work well, use ASIO, and do the job. You can still send the KS88 midi into the computer via the interface. It uses a 5 pin midi connector so get an interface with a 5 pin midi input and you're golden. The software will be using the ONE interface for INPUT and OUTPUT so you won't have the clock sync issues.
Last edited by Guitarhacker; 04/15/17 02:49 AM.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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Never use MIDI Mapper unless there is no other choice.
That alone could cause your issue. PGMusic has said a couple times that simply using the MS GS Wavetable synth as the default instead (even if using a soft synth in the long run) has solved some issues like this.
Herb's solution is preferred, but thought I'd mention the above in case it helps you or others.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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>> What are your computer specs? Ram? CPU speed? HD speed? etc I'm gonna go with "more than sufficient" but...it's a (multicore) i7-6700 @ 3.4 Ghz with 32GB of RAM. I have an SSD but I'm running BiaB off the traditional hard-drive which is a pretty usual 7200RPM. >>Does the slow down also happen in RB or any other DAW or music device? I don't really grasp DAWs but I managed to get sound out of a couple other MIDI-thru apps and they, too, lag. >>Are there tempo changes in the song? I'm not even at the "song" level. I'm just talking pressing keys on the keyboard and noticing a delay which seems to change (and mostly increase). >>If there are no tempo changes and the song starts out OK but then slows down it sounds like you are pushing something to the limit. Maybe the CPU, sound card, RAM, HD, etc but without the computer spec information it is hard to many any conclusion.<< It does sound like that, but the computer shows no signs of stress whatsoever. Like, the CPU sitting with BiaB open and idle looks exactly the same as the CPU sitting with BiaB open and me hitting the keys. I opened the Performance Monitor and added a few likely candidates that might be stressed and, no, there's not the slightest indication that BiaB even registers when I'm hitting keys, or when I'm generating and playing something random (except that when it's playing a full, randomly-generated piece, it reads more from the disk).
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Your problem is self inflicted. This is not surprising. >>You are using 2 soundcards. One for input ... the KS88 and then you use the MS wavetable as the output. Am I? The KS88 has no sound card, it's just an input device, if I understand what you mean be "sound card" and also what the Keystation 88 is all about. >>You really need to find ONE interface/card, which can support both in and out from the same card. I'm not 100% sure I'm using ANY sound card, to be honest. You say, "hey, dsbw, you must be using SOME sound card 'cause, you know, you have sound!" But if the in is a sound-card-less KS88 and the out is the Microsoft GS Wavetable synth—which is a softsynth, IIRC—then I'm using as little sound card as it's possible to use, it seems to me. >>I'd lay a bet that there is no clock sync between the 2 cards you are using. Since they both run at approximately the same clock speed, they start at the same time but the non-synced clocks soon start to wander out of sync and there you have it. The further you go, the worse it gets.<< I like this explanation because I understand it, generally, if not which 2 cards are involved here. Anyway, I plugged in my kid's keyboard and found that it lagged (noticably, since it DOES have a built-in synth) and that led to a solution.
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GOT IT! (And it was self-inflicted and I am a moron)
I plugged my kid's keyboard in and found the same lag, which eliminated the KS88 as the problem source.
Then I routed the sound through the monitor via the Onboard AMD sound processor and disabled the Sound Blaster.
Boom. Lag gone.
Sound Blaster does all this processing for games and movies (though I think the sync issues would drive me nuts there, too) so I just turned off all the special features and the lag went away.
Thanks for the walk-through, guys. That really helped me narrow it down.
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