On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 03:13:16 UTC, Manu wrote:
On 13 December 2013 04:52, John Colvin
Delay between people isn't really the problem, it's delay in
hearing
yourself that's the killer. Although 22ms is the normally
quoted limit for
noticing the latency, it actually depends on frequency. Even
regardless of
frequency, i typically find that anything less than 64ms is
ok, less than
128ms is just about bearable and anything more is a serious
problem for
recording a tight-sounding performance.
[…]
Man, my day job works in quantities of 16ms (1 frame), and I
have spent
many hours resolving inter-frame synchronisation issues (16ms
out of
synch). Maybe I'm just hyper-sensitive, but 64ms is extremely
noticeable to
me. 128ms is like an eternity!
Consider, 16th notes at 120bpm (not unusual in metal, I assure
you), are
only 125ms apart, that more than an entire note out.
Around 4ms is what professional recording setups aim for.
Yep, I'd be quite surprised if a professional musician (at least
one playing a somewhat percussive instrument) wouldn't notice a
20ms delay, given how obvious small delays are for me when e.g.
playing a VST instrument when the audio interface buffer size is
too large or a plugin is slowing down the whole system due to
delay compensation in the host software. In digital (live) pro
audio, latencies in the low single-digit microseconds are usually
considered acceptable, with more it depends on the circumstances.
Of course, the threshold for being able to play in sync in
relation to other musicians is quite a bit higher, and what I've
seen some singers do on big opera stages (think e.g.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bregenzer_Festspiele) is nothing
short of amazing.
David
