How to reduce latency to a bare minimum

[eleven111133]

Hey I have a roland Td-9 and am using it with superior drummer, ableton live 8, a 2011 macbook pro (lion osx 2.3 ghz/4 gigs ram), and an M-Audio pro fire 610 interface; and I am working on decreasing the latency to a bare minimum while still having a decent buffer size for the best quality of sound. To decrease latency to a point where I could play in real time with real feel I had to set my buffer to about 80 samples. The sound quality is decent but could be a lot better with larger buffer size. However, when I increase the buffer size the latency increases as well, to a point where it is impossible to play. I was wondering if there are any pci cards or sound cards that I could buy to fix this problem/guaranty the best send output with smallest amount of latency. Is there anything I can do?

Topic

[accydrums]

Hi,
I have a RME Fireface UC which is great if a little pricey. Latency in Logic is down to around 4 or 5 m/seconds which is barely noticeable. I previously had an M-Audio firewire 410 but to be honest they don’t update their drivers too often and are notoriously unstable/jittery with macs! Can’t recommend RME enough but have a look at MOTU as well.

If money is an issue have a look at the Presonus interfaces……..stable with macs and decent drivers.

Also try running at 96khz instead of 44.1……theoretically you can half the latency although it puts more strain on your cpu. I tend to swap between the two depending on the project and how many plug ins I’m running.

Hope that’s of some help????

[Author]

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