At what buffer setting does it negatively impact recording using Maschine's pads?

Hey guys ... this is my kinda thread! I am big on this as I tend to notice latency pretty quickly. I do alot of live fingerdrumming not just in live shows but when I am producing in the studio. this means that I am able to really geek out on how it feels.
I will say this. often I try to keep the buffer as low as I can regardless. just because I am anal about latency. so normally on my old system (08 mbp) I would keep it at 160- 192 because anything lower and performance would start to get more shakey as I use alot of plugins.
on my new retina mbp I use 128. THOUGH realistically I can honestly go to 256 and feel fine. the difference is VERY minor BUT I can notice it. 512 I can also feel fine with. it's such slight latency it won't throw me off timing BUT I can feel it. it almost makes me feel like I am hitting a different surface as it just doesn't snap the same way out the speakers when I hit the pad. but would it impact me? no not really.

generally speaking I try to stay around now as for numbers as I know jahrome is a geek like me.

on my retina mbp using the NI komplete audio 6 I get a total of 9.6 MS at 128 samples 48k (I always use 48k for dither reasons)
at 256 I am at 14.9 ms both very easily under what would throw me off time. (please note these times are also the same on my 08 mbp but it draws more cpu) now on my M-audio interfaces I see about roughly 5ms higher latency (I don't use those interfaces much) and on my novation ultranova as an interface at 128 I am seeing 11.9 ms which isn't terrible either. but I do see lower latency with my NI interfaces. (even the Traktor interfaces which get about the same time as the KA-6).

I would not be irritated about latency till I started hitting probably 25ms or higher but that doesn't mean I don't strive for the most immediate response.

I also will say when it comes to hardware be it my synths or other drum machines I would say maschine running under 14.9 ms feels no real difference to me than my hardware.

 

I've noticed very little latency discrepancy between Maschine and hardware. The only time I've ever noticed a latency discrepancy was when I started playing a Korg Triton a few years back and at that time I used 512 almost exclusively and I though the damn thing was reading my mind because it sounded like the sound was coming out I even hit the pad.

The mind is powerful thing, when you get used to a certain latency buffer, anything lower will screw with you a bit.

@Flux: BTW, I've been hearing good things about the NI K6, I've been thinking of purchasing it since I've been having major issues with my Duet since I upgraded to Lion, you said the latency is at about 9.6 at 48k using a buffer size of 128? If that is the case I'm definitely buying one. I was going to get the Duet 2 but I'm tired of Apogee's crappy drivers.

 

the only thing I hate about the KA-6 is that there is no software mixer so no way to do internal loop back recording. other than that I love it.

 

actual settings

 

That. I love mine but it f'ing needs a software update.

Sorry, i know, not the topic right now
Will check my settings tomorrow and post.

 

try JackRouter. it lets you route internal audio. you can record device output internally.


example screenshow showing internal routing with generic audio device. "system" are device outputs, jack lets monitor them!

peace

 

I'm fully aware of jack, sounds lower and others. It's not the same.

 

I noticed this thread and I really loved it! Thanks guys for all this new information. The average listener sometimes won't notice a difference between 20-30 ms. While studies show that more professional users will notice a difference around 10-13 ms. I feel like a lot of you who are noticing a difference between 120 samples and 64 samples and etc because what-ever sample rate you set your interface in your operating system with be different in your DAW. I heard that twice as much ms is usually added with software. So maybe a lot of people who are noticing latency with 128 samples is because the sample-rate doubles. But you guys know this already because I noticed you guys already went over that. I just want to make sure that is what you guys are saying right?