Synthogy Ivory II latency

[knutmarius]

I just purchased the Synthogy Ivory II Italian Grand, and I first have to say: Wow! Amazing sound!

I am however experiencing some trouble with getting the delay down to an acceptable level, and this is where I need some help.

I have a laptop which I am intending to use as a dedicated piano PC. On paper, the system requirements should be met:

- Core 2 Duo 2.1 GHz (dual core) CPU
- 4 GB RAM
- Brand new SSD
- Fresh install of Windows 8.1
- Avid Fast Track Duo dedicated USB sound card

Originally it had a 5400 rpm HDD, and then it was struggling a lot with keeping the sound from stuttering, and I got warnings in Ivory Cantabile saying that my disk was too slow. I did however see that neither the CPU nor the RAM was anywhere near the max load, so I figured my problem should be solved by upgrading to an SSD. Sure thing, the stuttering was gone with the SSD, but the delay was about 11 ms (according to the buffer size settings). Even though this is not a very big delay, it is still noticeable and annoying, so I was hoping I could reduce it a bit more.

I figured since the windows task manager tells me that both the CPU, the RAM and the disk should have unused potential, and since I am assuming that hardware limitations should be the main reason for latency, this should be possible to improve. Am I right about this?

I currently use a buffer size of 512, and if I decrease it further the sound becomes "choppy" and bad. I have tried setting memory usage to both large, medium and small. I have also tried reducing the number of voices. Neither of these seem to solve my problem.

I have also installed Ivory II on my new MacBook Pro Retina,which is quite a powerhouse, and here it runs very smoothly with no noticeable delay. I do however not want to use the MacBook for piano purpose, because I need to take it around with me for other work.

So my question to you guys are if you know of a way I could reduce the latency/delay on my older laptop without having to do major hardware upgrades. Hope you can accept that I am quite a novice in the world of virtual pianos.

Thanks in advance.

[iansinclair]

You may be stuck.  The Core 2 Duo was a good processor.  8 years ago, which is forever in computer terms.

That said, there is one thing you can check.  Make sure that nothing -- repeat, NOTHING -- is running in the background.  Firewalls and virus checkers can be the worst offenders, but clocks, widgets and other miscellaneous desktop things can also cause latency problems.

You may need good tech. help on this, if your are not really skilled at it.

[schwartzer]

1. Download ASIO4ALL sound driver.
2. Play with 0.3-1.0 latency.
3. ?
4. Profit.

[knutmarius]

Thanks for your answers!

iansinclair: Yes, I am aware that the CPU is quite old, and I would not be surprised if it would be a bottleneck for newer software, but I would then maybe expect the average CPU load to be higher while playing. That is why I was having a feeling that it could maybe be possible to do some configuration or driver updates that would utilize the hardware even more. BTW: I am a software developer with a masters degree, so hopefully I would not need a tech guy to help me stop some services and tasks in Windows But I am a novice in the world of virtual pianos and music software in general, so I have much to learn on that particular subject.

schwartzer: I had not heard about ASIO4ALL before, but I installed it and just tested it briefly now. Actually this seemed to have helped on the latency! Also, ASIO4ALL seems to give a more fine-grained control over the buffer size, so I can do some more detailed tests to see how low I can set the buffer size without getting "artifacts" and stutter in the output. Great tip! I will test it some more, and post an update when I have a clearer picture of the situation.

If ASIO4ALL does not turn out to be the solution after all, I guess I will just have to consider buying a new dedicated PC for this purpose, but I am still hoping I can avoid that for now.

[hfmadopter]

Thanks for your answers!

iansinclair: Yes, I am aware that the CPU is quite old, and I would not be surprised if it would be a bottleneck for newer software, but I would then maybe expect the average CPU load to be higher while playing. That is why I was having a feeling that it could maybe be possible to do some configuration or driver updates that would utilize the hardware even more. BTW: I am a software developer with a masters degree, so hopefully I would not need a tech guy to help me stop some services and tasks in Windows But I am a novice in the world of virtual pianos and music software in general, so I have much to learn on that particular subject.

schwartzer: I had not heard about ASIO4ALL before, but I installed it and just tested it briefly now. Actually this seemed to have helped on the latency! Also, ASIO4ALL seems to give a more fine-grained control over the buffer size, so I can do some more detailed tests to see how low I can set the buffer size without getting "artifacts" and stutter in the output. Great tip! I will test it some more, and post an update when I have a clearer picture of the situation.

If ASIO4ALL does not turn out to be the solution after all, I guess I will just have to consider buying a new dedicated PC for this purpose, but I am still hoping I can avoid that for now.

I was over in both Pianoteq a forums and Pianoworld forums looking up the subject of my MP6 and VST ( I have a windows 7 laptop with an i3 processor I want to use with mine). But I hit on a thread where a guy was using a similar computer and vintage as yours. He claimed, and others followed, that drivers are key and also interface. His processor was the same as yours and the HD was a 5400 RPM one and he claimed no issue once upgrading his ASIO . Everyone claimed that Ivory II was the biggest on computer demand, Galaxy a bit less and Pianoteq the least demanding on older computers. Just for FWIW, it seems you are on the right track then ! Two or three different people were not using anything super fast and modern for laptops with VST and successfully.

Hmmm, I found your answer there but not my own, LOL ! I'm trying to figure out if my MP6 will swap midi both in and out on one USB cable. My manual says just that if you use both a MIDI port and the USB that the USB takes priority. Funny, I can find audio interfaces that do this but not the answer to if my MP6 does. Which of course that determines if I need the interface or not to get out to my sound system.

[knutmarius]

After using the ASIO4ALL driver for a while now, I can confirm that the latency issues are indeed gone! The latency is not noticeable anymore, and the sound is pure and stable, although I will take a deeper dive into the default background services in Windows 8.1 to remove potential CPU hogs. At one point the sound got some artifacts, but then I saw that a built-in anti-malware service in W8.1 was consuming 50% CPU, so if I just manage to get rid of all of these services it seems that everything should be good!

hfmadopter: The thing that suprises me the most with this guy being able to run Ivory on his "vintage PC" is the HDD. My guess is that my SSD should make a huge difference over the 5400rpm old disk, since the disk IO should be quite massive for big libraries like Ivory.

[hfmadopter]

hfmadopter: The thing that suprises me the most with this guy being able to run Ivory on his "vintage PC" is the HDD. My guess is that my SSD should make a huge difference over the 5400rpm old disk, since the disk IO should be quite massive for big libraries like Ivory.

Ya, that was an old article there at Pianoworld. I'm sure he has upgraded by now but he did claim the drivers were his issue, not his HD.

Musicians Friend, where I bought the MP6 and other components from got back to me, they feel the MP6 midi through USB is a one way trip ( instrument to PC). They also indicated that USB out to an audio interface box would be a lot more friendly to fidelity than using the computers head phone jack , as I suspected. Now I have to decide what I want to do. I can go as I am, the MP6 is powerful on it's own. I can go with an audio interface and bring in more realism with VST. Or I can go sound module with audio interface and bring in even more than just VST much of which is loaded in the sound module ( I like mixing and do that on the keyboard now). So I need my thinking cap on for a little bit yet !

[knutmarius]

Unfortunately I cannot be of much help yet, as my experience with this is very limited as of today. But I like what I am seeing from this new world of piano->PC interaction, so I am guessing I will spend more time and learn more about it as time goes by! Good luck with figuring out the best solution to your problem, though!

[hfmadopter]

Unfortunately I cannot be of much help yet, as my experience with this is very limited as of today. But I like what I am seeing from this new world of piano->PC interaction, so I am guessing I will spend more time and learn more about it as time goes by! Good luck with figuring out the best solution to your problem, though!

Thanks ! It's not so much a problem as weighing options. I got my answer I was looking for yesterday regarding the cable. The MP6 is just fantastic on it's own actually ( after a year of tweaking), so I can take my time. I'm just using your post as a sound board I guess. Good luck to you too though ! The world of digital instrumentation is quite something that has taken me totally off guard, I never expected to fall for it as I have. I hope you find as much richness from it as I have.