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Lag/Latency when playing DSND's from BFD3

Started by Kornee, March 01, 2021, 01:42:58 PM

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Kornee

Hi there,

First message on the forums for me, it seems to be a nice community!

I recently purchased BFD3, with the jazz noir expansion, and used SDSE from Lustark to convert a whole kit to DSND files. I loaded these files into my 2box drumit 3 unit and built a kit on the device itself. I have to say it sounds absolutely incredible, but as soon as I start to play with all 4 limbs at the same time, it starts to lag. Some notes sound later than they are actually played and this makes the kit unplayable (since you constantly use all 4 limbs in jazz playing). I exported them in 24 bit sound quality. Is it possible that the sound quality is too high for the drumit 3 to render everything and switching to 16 bit could solve this? I thought I'd ask here first before trying a million things, because it's quite time consuming.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Best,

Dirk.

Lustar

#1
Hi, I wish I could have replied to this sooner, I only saw your message now!

It's better to keep it in 24-bit for the export, the resulting .dsnd instruments will contain 16-bit samples in any case so it's not related to that.

Here's what you can try to solve latency:
- try changing the Decay from "infinite" to 10 for all pieces in your kit, it was found to help a lot.
- try setting "Max tune up" to 4 in SDSE Options > Convert to get smaller dsnd files. Creating a dsnd with the tune up allows to pitch up the .dsnd on the module, at the cost of reducing the sound quality a bit, but with the side effect of reducing the file size which can help. If you'd like it's possible to use DSound Manager to batch convert dsnd files to any max tune up setting (it creates new files).
- also possible but shouldn't be needed: you can reduce the maximum samples length on the second Samples page in the SDSE Option. You could try to reduce it for the cymbals and hihat.
- if the above didn't solve it check the SD card, some cards work better than others (there's a SD card compatibility thread here)

I hope that helps!

Kornee

Hi!

Thanks for your message and no worries, I'm in no rush. I've messed around with the decay a bit today (setting them all to 10), but it doesn't seem to solve the issue completely. However, using a 2box hi-hat and snare sample instead of the BFD3 ones, does seem to solve the issue. I saw that the tune setting now gives me 12 different options for tuning. That seems like a lot and since I will not be needing that at all, I will export a kit with 0 tune up and see if that does anything. I'm using the  factory SD card btw (4GB).

Best,

Dirk.

Lustar

#3
Tune 0 is the same as "disabled", it's the default setting to keep the best sound quality. To get a smaller file than with 0/disabled you would need to set it to 4 for instance. The setting is used to be able to tune up the dsnd on the module but in this case it would just be to use the side effect from it, producing smaller files (increasing max tune up decreases the dsnd file size)
For the hihat you can also try the setting to reduce the amount of articulations (open levels) in SDSE Options > Zones, Hats, Maximum articulations.
DSound Manager can also be used to remove articulations from an existing dsnd (double click the dsnd to open it, uncheck some zones click save as), or to shorten the length of the samples from existing dsnd files. It can be combined to get smaller files, on the Tune page you can set both a max tune of 4 and a maximum length then click Tune to create a smaller dsnd.


halftime

I noticed these same latency issues with a kit exported from Superior Drummer 2. I tried setting all decay values less than infinite and modifying the max tune to 4 with DSound Manager and it improved the performance to a decent level, but I'm still hearing a little bit of stuttering occasionally when playing very fast patterns around the set. The 2Box samples do not have any latency that I can hear. I guess I'll try to reduce the sample file size even further and see if it helps.

Lustar

If you still get latency once you have reduced the file sizes the next thing to check would be the SD card. If you have the older DrumIt 5 or DrumIt 3 and don't have the external SD card modification yet I would recommend to install it, it's very convenient. Some SD cards can seem perfectly fine until you start playing slightly bigger kits and a small performance/compatibility improvement can make all the difference.
You can also check the Unit settings, some forum members found that the newer X-talk related settings from the newer OS versions could increase latency.
I started regrouping the information to troubleshoot latency when playing bigger kits from BFD3 or SD3 in the SDSE FAQ here in "How can I solve latency issues when playing bigger kits from BFD3 or SD3?"

halftime

Quote from: Lustar on March 14, 2021, 05:11:09 PM
If you still get latency once you have reduced the file sizes the next thing to check would be the SD card. If you have the older DrumIt 5 or DrumIt 3 and don't have the external SD card modification yet I would recommend to install it, it's very convenient. Some SD cards can seem perfectly fine until you start playing slightly bigger kits and a small performance/compatibility improvement can make all the difference.

I already did the card mod earlier because I was experiencing latency with the original SD card just using the stock samples. The current card is a 32GB SanDisk Ultra 90 MB/s SDHC that was recommended by Anders some time ago. The module is a DrumIt 3 that I bought last year.

Quote
You can also check the Unit settings, some forum members found that the newer X-talk related settings from the newer OS versions could increase latency.

This is problematic in my case because the original OS version without the X-talk setting produced quite significant cross-talk between the head and the rim of my Roland PD-85 pads. The OS upgrade fixed that problem but may have introduced the latency issue with big kits.

halftime

#7
Well, I tried shortening sample lengths, but it didn't help - in fact, it feels like with the new versions the latency got even worse. The situation improved when I replaced the hi-hat, the ride and the snare with 2Box samples.

This doesn't seem to be directly related to file sizes because even the original exported kit is smaller in size than some 2Box kits that have no issues.

Lustar

It could be more about the average sample lengths found in a kit, or possibly some pieces, rather than the total size of a kit. The hihat and cymbals are more likely to reach the limits, the hihat because it's usually the biggest dsnd file in a kit and cymbals because they can contain very long samples. I would compare the samples lengths with the pieces that worked for your setup and try to match them. You can double click on a dsnd to open it in DSound Manager (or right click on a pad button in a kit in DKit Manager and select Edit) then click on the Layers buttons for each zone on the right and check the maximum length of the zones at the bottom. I would compare the lengths of the zones you're more likely to play when you noticed the latency (for instance the closed hihat) and also the max tune (most 2box sounds use 4 but some hihats use 5, 6, 7)

halftime

I'm wondering if it's not the X-Talk setting in itself but the amount of cross-talk that the module has to handle that affects the performance. Most of my pads are on a very basic Roland rack that is not the sturdiest and I have to use some cross-talk cancel to prevent unwanted triggering. Maybe the latency doesn't appear so easily with people who use more separate stands or a strong rack?