Latency

Discussions about the use and operation of SAC (Software Audio Console)

Re: Latency

Postby BrentEvans » Sun Dec 07, 2014 10:31 am

lowdbrent wrote:You can't slide your IEMs back 4 feet. 4 to 6ms is unacceptable. Modern systems are 2ms or less micro seconds round trip. Some are 200 micro seconds.

You're absolutely correct. You can't move iems. How is it, though, that for years, even on analog rigs, performers dealt with 5-10ms of acoustic latency on wedges with no problems? The same problems of phasing with bone conduction occur, but they are masked by ambient sound.

The answer to phasing in iems is creating the right mix, which usually includes ambience mics or a touch of reverb. This smears the phase problem the same way ambient sound does in a stage with wedges. I've done via with performers on ears at 2x128 inn Sac with no complaints, but I always have ambience in their ears. It works great.
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Re: Latency

Postby lowdbrent » Sun Dec 07, 2014 12:27 pm

Here is my take. In the old days, monitors, especially side fills, were misapplied and abused. Instead of the band mixing to each other first, and then L/R side fills augmenting what the left with right sources and the right with left, we created all kinds of delays and loudness wars between multiple sources. The thing is, we could always walk away from it. We could walk closer to our amps, change how our instruments react, change how we react. We could walk away from one mix and into another if needed. We could walk away from feedback. With everything crammed in the ear and instruments running direct with emulators and modelers, it is just a completely different monster. I think monitoring has become so direct and resolute, we are not able to hear the crap we were masking with volume assaults on our hearing. The other thing is, we hear conductively. We don't just hear with our ears. We have removed feeling, the vibe of the sound on stage. Hence the need to mount kickers to thrones and bass player platforms.
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Re: Latency

Postby RBIngraham » Sun Dec 07, 2014 1:53 pm

I can see where that's coming from. Of course you can always take it "one step back" because there are still plenty of folks around that remember when there were no monitors on stage at all. :-)

To me it's all about the performance and the performers and what they need to do the best job they can. For some the latency is probably a non issue or they just don't notice or their hearing is shot anyway, etc, etc, etc... For others it's probably a big deal. So give them what they need as best as possible.

And in my world that also involves making it so they influence as little as possible what the paying audience is there to hear. Of course unless you're in a stadium what comes off the stage is going to influence the house in some way and most of the places I work it is anywhere between 30 to 60 percent of what the audience is hearing, approx.

Still wondering what desk is 200 microseconds input to output. :-) Typo?
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Re: Latency

Postby lowdbrent » Sun Dec 07, 2014 6:15 pm

Nope. Not Consoles. We were talking SAC and AMP like systems. QSYS and Symetrix SymNet.

When it comes to Dante based monitoring consoles and systems, Digital Audio Labs and others offer that kind of latency.
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Re: Latency

Postby jlepore » Sun Dec 07, 2014 9:08 pm

Based on my tests, AMP + ASIO Driver can achieve 2ms over the hardware latency. if you can get Dante hardware to run that fast, and the driver is also quick, you should be able to get down to 2ms or less. That would bring it right in line with real desks.
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Re: Latency

Postby RBIngraham » Sun Dec 07, 2014 9:40 pm

lowdbrent wrote:Nope. Not Consoles. We were talking SAC and AMP like systems. QSYS and Symetrix SymNet.

When it comes to Dante based monitoring consoles and systems, Digital Audio Labs and others offer that kind of latency.


Interesting, didn't know those systems were quite that low, but as I suspected you're comparing apples and oranges. SAC and AMP are virtual mixing consoles and as you know Qsys and SymNet are DSP system routers and processors. While they have a lot of the same tool kit under the hood I doubt too many people are using either of those products to mix monitors or any active mixing for that matter. Just as I doubt there are many out there using AMP or SAC as a system processor or router. (although I have actually done that with SAC)

That's not to say that I dismiss the matter, just that if you're going to start throwing numbers around, particularly ones that are much lower than what is available in the products being discussed, it's only fair to be clear about what kind of devices one is talking about.

Obviously I don't think SAC is very competitive when it comes to the topic of low latency mixing. AMP appears to be able to hold it's own, but probably won't blow any of the hardware options out of the water unless someone comes along with a better driver model for Windows than ASIO. Of course with the right CPU and hardware and with it's ability to actually make use of more than a single (or maybe two at most) core CPU AMP could potentially run it's engine at 96KHz and cut all the latency in half. But that would probably bring many CPUs to their knees unless the channel count was small.

Anyway, I don't really see the software mixing console thing ever being the leader in the latency wars, but there are many other attributes that they do bring to the table over the hardware solutions.
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