0 Latency setup with guitar rig for PC?

[silentrage]

Actually, i wouldnt go near USB for audio gear, theres a reason the best outboard soundcards are firewire, it's just more stable!

Hey Adam, thanks for the heads up!
I think maybe (from reading all the reviews I can find) that in case of the cheap end of the deal, FireWire may still be very unstable due to shoddy driver work or just the cheap construction or whatever, but I will compare the USB version as well as the Firewire in this case (M-Audio AUDIOPHILE) and watch out for those instability problems.

balanced is supposed to have less noise

The manual of my card says "Balanced signals provide an additional +6dB of gain on the inputs and are recommended for best audio performance, although unbalanced cables are fine for most applications. If you’re having problems with hum and noise or just want the best possible performance, use balanced cables. (...) WARNING: Do NOT use balanced audio cables when connecting balanced outputs to unbalanced inputs. Doing so can increase noise level and introduce hum. Use balanced (3-conductor) cables ONLY if you are connecting balanced inputs to balanced outputs."

Thanks for the info!
I'm guessing that unbalanced should be OK unless your computer is polluting the signal with extra noise from its processor and such?
I saw somewhere else on the forum that by using a little plugin to reduce the low end frequency on your recording it should get rid of most if not all of such noise, if that's the case, I should be fine with unbalanced.
No?

[Peter Antal]

I don't know... with a high-quality PCI card there shouldn't be any noise coming from the rest of the computer. I have an EMU 1212M, it's a two-card setup. It has its own FX processors, zero-latency monitoring, mastering-grade AD/DA converters and a very good patchbay/mixer interface (Patchmix DSP) for signal routing, level control, pan, EQ, inserting effects, send/return, monitoring etc. I think it's in the price range you're looking at because when I was planning to buy a sound card, the ones mentioned in this thread were on my list. :) EMU makes very good stuff.

[silentrage]

Hey Peter,
I went and looked at Emu 1212M, it looks pretty impressive for the money!

but some guy gave it this review on Musicians friend, just wondering if this happened with your card too?

"Patch MIX drivers felling on startup, a lots clicks and pops under 12ms Latency. ASIO driver unstable, direct monitoring makes lots of noise amplifying output signal.“

[Peter Antal]

Hm, never had such problems, in fact - any problems with it, and I'm using it w/ 3 to 5 ms latency. :) It might be computer-related - mine's a P4 3GHz w/ 2 GB's of DDR RAM, good hard drives and a rather affordable motherboard. Passive cooling, though, except the PSU and a system fan on the bottom of the case. Only the necessary programs are installed and I keep Windows in good condition and lightweight w/ TuneUp and Eset Smart Security.

That guy might not have the latest drivers and Patchmix installed. They tend to update both. The only disadvantage of the 1212M is the lack of dedicated microphone and instrument ins. For that you'd either need to connect a Microdock or get a 1616 or 1616M instead of the 1212M. Those are more expensive. They also make USB interfaces, however no firewire. The models with an 'M' have the better converters.

[silentrage]

Thanks again for the great info,
sorry to sound like such a newb but the spec sheet says there's 2(?) 1/4" inputs, what's the difference between those and a dedicated instrument in?

[Peter Antal]

Yeah, the card has two analog inputs, a midi in, a midi out and two analog outs (left and right). The other card has all kinds of digital ins and outs. The two inputs are for line level signals, either balanced or unbalanced. Those are two independent channels in Patchmix, usually used as left and right in case of a stereo source. ;) Plugging a passive guitar directly into one of them will result in a very muddy sound due to the impedance mismatch. You'll either need active pickups/electronics or a stomp box. I have a Boss OD-3, for instance, I simply need to put that between my guitar and the card. It will buffer my signal even when bypassed and that's OK for the Line In. You'll probably also need to boost the signal in Patchmix (it allows +12 dB) and further in Guitar Rig as most guitars produce a much weaker signal than line level. Most guitars sit between mic and line level. That's why it's more rewarding to plug into an instrument input. ;)

[silentrage]

I see.
I got a MT-2, I guess it could act as a fix for the impedance as long as I keep the distortion to a minimum and EQ flat, right?

Since I'm sorta broke I doubt I'll be able to get a 1616 or Dock, but I hear you can get a microdock and it will pretty much upgrade your 1212 into a 1616 or something?

Something else that's weird I noticed today while playing with GR2.
A few modules like compression and delay really kill my latency. It went from unnoticable (with no modules active) to at least 200ms-ish when I flip on the  compression.
On the flip side a lot of things don't seem to affect latency much at all.
Like all the distortion and amp / mic simulation, which is strange to me.

I also had GR2 running in plugin mode with Cubase SX3 and Ezdrum playing a drum track while recording and the delay don't seem much different from when I just had a standalone GR2 running with a pretty standard module chain.
Turning on HQ mode made the CPU usage jump from 10 to 20, but no delay difference.

Only difference was the slightly noticable signal breakup when SX3 was running.

I'm pretty optimistic that getting that hardware interface will make it recording-worthy. :)

[silentrage]

well I won't get the thing til at least 6 months from now (short on the dough) so I figured waht the hell, I'll record something just to test out the procedure.
and here it is!
for some reason the beginning had lots of garbage but then it quietted down a bit.  The lag is not too bad, but I think there's quite a few rhythm mismatch in there, the overdubbing part turned out better than I expected but that's pure luck, I had to guess how much delay there would be and play a bit ahead.

o and please don't laugh at how bad it is, it's my first time and I just learned the song...

http://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10840

[Peter Antal]

I see.
I got a MT-2, I guess it could act as a fix for the impedance as long as I keep the distortion to a minimum and EQ flat, right?

Since I'm sorta broke I doubt I'll be able to get a 1616 or Dock, but I hear you can get a microdock and it will pretty much upgrade your 1212 into a 1616 or something?

I believe you could also use the MT-2 in bypass as it's not true-bypass but buffered. That way the pedal won't mess with your sound.

Getting a dock for the 1212 is not really worth IMO as the dock has all the ins and outs the 1212 already has + some more. The 1212M has better converters than the dock or the plain 1616 but I'm not sure if that's worth the price difference. If mic and instrument ins are needed in the long run, I'd rather get something with those already there. :)