Superior 3 with Roland Edrums Latency ?

[Matthew Kudirka]

I’m still very happy with SD2. But I am hopefully going to purchase SD3 as soon as I get an answer to this.

I use SD2 exclusivly with playing edrums. Strictly for practice and recording. I have SD2 set up with un noticable latency. Will I get the same results with SD3?

I have a 2014 MacBook Pro wtith 16gb RAM. The issue is I only have a 256gb harddrive. So I’d probably need to run this off of an external SSD. Im also useing Reaper as my host.

Anyone playing eDrums with SD3 yet.

Topic

[paperrobots]

Yup, it works just as good as SD2 from what I can tell. No noticeable latency.

Also external hard drive shouldn’t be an issue since sounds are loaded into ram. It just means initial load time is a bit longer.

[Matthew Kudirka]

awesome, thanks man.

[vinster_60445]

I have two modules. Will SD3 be able to map both “brains”‘in one instance or will I need to run two like I did with SD2? I looked through the manual, did not see anything that will allow me two. Toontrack Solo would have an add drummer feature.

[Henrik]

@vinster_60445 said:
I have two modules. Will SD3 be able to map both “brains”‘in one instance or will I need to run two like I did with SD2? I looked through the manual, did not see anything that will allow me two. Toontrack Solo would have an add drummer feature.  

Superior Drummer 3 can only have one mapping at a time. Are they different brands? Possibly, you can map one of the brains to match the other, and set up the mapping in Superior to match them? Maybe not a good solution for you though 🙂

Henrik Ekblom - User Experience Designer
Toontrack

[vinster_60445]

One is a Roland TD-12 on midi channel 9 and one is a Roland TD-5 on midi channel 11. Will SD3 know midi note 38 channel 11 is not the same as midi note 38 channel 9 when I hit the learn button?

[Henrik]

You can select what MIDI channel to listen to, 1, 2, 3 …, 16 – or “All”. This is done in Settings / MIDI In/E-drums. MIDI learn won’t differentiate MIDI notes with the same number, but from different channels.

Do you play the TD-12 and TD-5 simultaneously?

Henrik Ekblom - User Experience Designer
Toontrack

[vinster_60445]

Yes I do, I have 2 instances of SD2 in Reaper one on channel 9 and one on channel 11, which makes a huge kit. It is startin to look like I will have to set up SD3 the same way. I will just have to spend some time and set up presets, unless my SD2 mapping presets move on over.

When I am in reaper, I open 2 tracks of SD2 and allow all the multi tracks to set up. It makes a huge mixer just for drums. Sometimes I will just have 2 tracks of SD2 in stereo one on midi channel 9 and one on 11, either way it lets me have a huge kit. I have Other midi channels used up for guitar pedals and key controllers.

I was hoping to open one SD3 track and map many channels, not just one. No big deal, it wont stop me from working with it.

[Henrik]

Ok! Regarding the MIDI mapping – you can load SD2 MIDI mapping presets in SD3 – in Settings / MIDI In/E-drum

Henrik Ekblom - User Experience Designer
Toontrack

[rrosin]

@vinster_60445 said:
Yes I do, I have 2 instances of SD2 in Reaper one on channel 9 and one on channel 11, which makes a huge kit. It is startin to look like I will have to set up SD3 the same way. I will just have to spend some time and set up presets, unless my SD2 mapping presets move on over.

I see one problem with this configuration: you have to use two independent mixers. Thie means instruments from one kit cannot influence the other kit (bleeding, effects etc.). It might lead into performance and ressources issues as well.

I am dealing with the same problem at the moment: handling two MIDI devices with SD3. SD3 can handle multiple MIDI input devices, but as far as I’ve seen so far it can not use different mappings for each device. I think I will end up with assigning different notes to both devices. Hendrik mentioned a solution using different MIDI channels – I did not try this yet.

Regards Reiner

[vinster_60445]

I think I may have a solution in my situation. Since superior drummer is unable to have two modules putting out the same midi note numbers for snare, what I can do is on one of my modules , is change the midi note. The Td-12 is able to change midi note Numbers, the TD-5 is not,so what I can do is set them up so that they don’t have the same note numbers, and then I can just use the learn feature and user preset feature to make my own maps.

[Erwin Ew]

Just my feedback about your original Roland question and latency:
I’ve a Roland TD12 as well with RME Fireface 802 audio interface (Firewire). I use Windows with Reaper and SD3 samples located on a normal 7200rpm harddisk, Intel Core I7.

My smallest possible buffer size is 64 Samples on 48kHz sample rate and no clicks and pops with SD3, but never tried this with SD2. This is similar to:
Output latency: 2.8ms
Buffer latency: 1.0ms
This is extremely good compared with other audio software which requires most of the times larger buffer sizes.

In a normal recording setup I always use 128 samples, 48kHz in Reaper with SD2 or SD3. Then it is also possible to add additional effects outside SD. This is similar to:
Output latency: 4.8ms
Buffer latency: 2.7ms

To be honest, I don’t hear/feel the difference between 64 or 128 samples.

For mastering I always use high buffer sizes such as 1024 samples where latency does not make sense.

My conclusion:

– SD3 has a very good performance and impossible to hear latency which makes it ideal for E-Drum recordings and playing live.
– An SSD decreases loading time at startup compared with a HD, but has no effect on playing when it’s loaded in RAM.
– Additionally, the whole repsonse of the kits in SD3 is much better, including the HH control. The dynamic range of the new kits is much better, even with a clean kit without any effects. I wish SD3 was 10 years earlier available.

I can’t say anything about MAC. Maybe this is helpful for others…

[Lukas Grumet]

Hi Erwin!

so do you plug in your E-Drum via USB into your audio interface which is then connected via Firewire to your computer?
your latency seems really impressive!

yesterday, I tried connecting my TD-30 via USB to my laptop. Yet my output latency was above 10ms despite using ASIO drivers.

[Erwin Ew]

Hi Lukas!

My setup is as follows:
Roland TD12 MIDI out (5 pin cable) -> RME Fireface 802 -> Firewire cable to my desktop computer.
I’ve added a separate DeLOCK PCIe FireWire 1394A card. (USB to Firewire is not possible)
I’ve lots of USB hubs and devices connected to my PC, so I decided to add a separate Firewire card for audio only. The performance should be similar with USB. (I did not test this)

Some suggestions to decrease the latency is to tweak the ASIO buffer size and samplerate. Rule of thumb:
– A smaller the buffer size decreases latency, but increases ticks and distortion.
– A larger buffer size increases latency, but decreases ticks and distortion.
– A higher samplerate also increases latency. 44.1kHz or 48kHz is enough for Superior Drummer.

RME developed their own optimized audio driver and hardware for Windows and Mac to minimize latency. Steinbergs ASIO (Audio Stream Input Output) is especially designed for direct monitoring during recording and does say anything about latency.

Success!

[Lukas Grumet]

@Erwin said:
Hi Lukas!

My setup is as follows:
Roland TD12 MIDI out (5 pin cable) -> RME Fireface 802 -> Firewire cable to my desktop computer.
I’ve added a separate DeLOCK PCIe FireWire 1394A card. (USB to Firewire is not possible)
I’ve lots of USB hubs and devices connected to my PC, so I decided to add a separate Firewire card for audio only. The performance should be similar with USB. (I did not test this)

Some suggestions to decrease the latency is to tweak the ASIO buffer size and samplerate. Rule of thumb:
– A smaller the buffer size decreases latency, but increases ticks and distortion.
– A larger buffer size increases latency, but decreases ticks and distortion.
– A higher samplerate also increases latency. 44.1kHz or 48kHz is enough for Superior Drummer.

RME developed their own optimized audio driver and hardware for Windows and Mac to minimize latency. Steinbergs ASIO (Audio Stream Input Output) is especially designed for direct monitoring during recording and does say anything about latency.

Success!  

wow! thanks so much! your information is gold.
your post should be sticky! like “a guide on minimizing latency”

[Lukas Grumet]

current setup:

5 pin midi cable from td 30 into focuscrite scarlett 6 interface.
scarlett via usb into laptop
headphones plugged into the scarlett interface.

this is what i get. could be better, right?
samplerate: 41khz
buffer size: 3ms

[Author]

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