Help - Latency, Audio Kontrol 1 and Vista

Hi

Im getting very frustrated, im trying to use live 7, with vista - which works fine when using midi (some slight latency on the midi but nothing to bad)..but audio, its horrible!

Does anyone know if this is a common problem? I have tried all varieties of settings but i still cannot, for example plug my guitar into the audio kontrol 1 and monitor it via live 7 without there being a delay from when i pluck a string to it coming out of the speakers...

I think i have it all set up right - but i might have missed something obvious.

Any help would be great.

Cheers Tarl

 

Welcome =)

There's going to be some delay; there's no way around it. You aren't just dealing with output latency; you're dealing also with input latency and processor time as well. However, you should be able to get low enough so it's not an issue.

What are your settings in AK 1's control panel?

ew

 

Thanks

Hi

Control panel setting:

Presets - Multimedia/games - this is the only one i can use that doesnt give me some kind of glitches

USB buffer - 16ms
Audio Buffer - 64ms

Buffer Format - Sample rate - 44100hz

Is that any good?

tarl

 

Nope... that's way high. Try 2 ms USB/4 ms audio and see what that does.

Before you do that, shut off any form of power management and speedstepping. There's an AK 1 troubleshooting guide; I'd suggest you go through it.

ew

 

What are your hardware specs? IE: Processor; RAM: Do you use an add in Usb 2.0 card or is it defult. The 64ms audio buffer alone is way too high, some specs would help some help you diagnose the problem. Not much help now, hope to be soon

 

I found that the AK1 didn't work so well with ableton. I've recently reverted back to cubase SX3 but I didn't have that high of a latency in Live. You should be able to get down to atleast 6-8ms with a decent computer.

 

In reply..

my laptop spec is

Amd Turion 64 X2 1.6ghz
1918mb

im not sure about the usb, i have 4 usb sockets, 1 of which i use for the card.

No matter what settings i try and set it at i either get latency or clicks/glitches etc...Im still trying though!

Ive now tried it via ableton to play back midi, and guess what, there is latency there also! But ive not played around with that yet...

Its a real pain..

Cheers for all the advise
tarl

 

I don't know about Live 7 i've heard there has been a few advancements; changes to the functions and behavior of the software due to the responses of users. I do use Live 6.10 though and have used it with Vista and Audio Kontrol 1. My Specs should be posted as my signiture. In Vista there are a few things that go on in the background that aren't so friendly with any kind of produciton software, that's why i purchased xp it's alot more reliable. The windows defender uses alot of system resources on a daily basis for it's updating, real time protection and normal system scanning. Not to say it's bad it's just not friendly to those apps that need uninterrupted processing. The disk defragmenter is by default set to auto regerdless of system load and will continue until finished, even as the only function running my 250 gb hd defragmented once a week still took a little over an hour.
I don't know what you've tried or how your os is configured so i'll stop here if you would like to know more about my experience with and how i got the most reliability out of vista let me know. Thanks

 

Turn off Cool 'n Quiet in your laptop's BIOS, but make sure that the latest Cool 'n Quiet drivers are installed Also, download the dual core optimizer from the AMD site:

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182_871_14098,00.html

Have your power scheme in Vista set to whatever they call no speedstepping these days- I think they call it max performance (on XP, it's called always on). Disable any network adapters when using AK 1 with audio apps.

ew

 

i've got the same problem, with my laptop and pc.

my pc is an intel core 2 cpu t 6600 @ 2.4 ghz with 2 gb ram, running vista ultimate. ableton live 7.
my latency is 1 s. my settings as well 16 ms usb buffersize and 64 ms audio buffersize, if i go smaller, i have some knicks and knacks and quiiiets....
holy, what a ****.

does nobody knows what's the problem of this?

 

Welcome =)

In your case:

1) turn off any network adapters when using Live
2) turn off speedstepping in your BIOS.
3) for your power scheme, choose maximum performance, always on or whatever Vista calls it.
4) you didn't say anything about graphics. Shared or separate graphics card?
5) try turning off multiprocessor support in Live- Ableton's implementation isn't the best. There's a lot of reports of audio issues and Live 7 on the Ableton forums; the most recommended fix is to turn off the multiprocessor support. Distributing threads is going to raise your latency somewhat to begin with, and with less than perfect thread distribution, it's going to cause real problems.
6) turn off Aero

For what it's worth, with Live 6, XP and my AK 1, I can run at 1 ms USB/4 ms audio all day with multiprocessor support in Live turned on. If I'm really putting a stress on it, I'll bump the USB latency up to 2 ms.

ew

 

hey ew...thanks

thanks for your reply
1) i did, nothing happened.
2) i don't have a laptop,so i dont have speedsteppingg
3) i always choose maximum performance in my system settings
4) i've a nvidia geforce 7950 gt
5) when i turne off mulstiprocessor in live, the "knacks,knicks" sounds louder -> most bad
6) whats that?

i installed the newest live version 7.0.5, the newest audio kontrol firmware and software, and the newest novation sl zero (if that would be the the problem)

now i don't know what to do...?

regards

 

2) Yes you do.

ew

 

Hi, I've just registered my new AK1. I've the same problem as other folks - weird sound drops, and it gets a little bit better when I use multimedia/games preset only. I did test this device a year ago and even posted some pages in a local audio magazine about it. There was some probs with a few older models of laptops, no probs with PC's tested. A purchase of a new powerfull Laptop Dell XPS M1530 didn't get a doubt that I may consider such a problem, cause I need do some producing jobs outside. Disabling network devices is a partial isue for me, but I'm not satisfied at all. AK1 seemed to be well clear sounding product. The only well working NB was IBM R52 with XP PRO, but 1,7 GHz single core is to slow for some new audio apps. I'll try installing XP, but new even more powerfull Dell Vostro (XP) or Toshiba Cosmio (C2D 45nm 2,5GHz, 3GB RAM, Vista Ultimate 32 - all steps mentioned above disabled) has the same prob. I did lots of tech tests, there may be few pop conclusions - most NBs are not suitable for AK1 because of distrotions of installed devices, usb port is too slow, 5400rpm hdd is too slow, Vista is "a bad thing". If anyone can supply realy usable info, pls, post it. Thank u

 

1) From what they say, if you suffer many issues with the AK1 you are part of an unlucky minority.

2) It's ok; you can always do troubleshooting to resolve the issues. There are ALOT of things to consider as well as steps to take to get the latency and stability you want with the AK1. Again, most people have managed to resolve their issues.

3) If you somehow don't manage to resolve your issues either by trying every single applicable troubleshooting tip from the troubleshooting guide / or posting detailed problem logs and Computer specifications to tech support and they fail to help you as well, then sadly you simply just own a computer that the AK1 somehow cannot go well with. Either you have to change your computer / laptop or change your audio interface altogether.