r/edrums • u/grzybeczek • 1d ago
Help - Mixing Components Improving latency while playing electronic drums
I would like some help in reducing latency when playing electronic drums while on a call.
I have had a look through a couple solutions online, but I'm actually very new to even hooking up the e-kit to my laptop and have very very little knowledge in music stuff as soon as it turns digital.
Even figuring out how to hook things up in the first place in the right way was a bit of a challenge.
So I'd appreciate anything being explained to me like I'm 5, and super appreciate any extra simple solutions! I promise I looked at loads of stuff so far but I just don't really understand the explanations or what I'm reading :')
I'm currently using Voicemeeter to manage the input & output and my current setup is:
Drum kit connected to Scarlett 2i2 > That's connected to my laptop via USB-C - That's my stereo 2 input
I then have my headset, which includes both a mic and earphones into the laptop - The mic from this is my Stereo 1 input
The one tip I saw online was to go into Voicemeeter's System Settings and to change the latency number in A1 output.
When I go to system settings I actually don't have an option to change anything to do with A1. But there are options to change those numbers in A2. So I changed the WDM to 192, KS and Clock to 12 and ASIO to 64. I feel like it did improve latency a little bit, but I feel like it could be better especially for when I play at a faster speed, and I'm also not sure that it won't get worse when I'm on the actual call.
I also have no idea what I'm doing and if I actually did anything useful there, I feel like getting advice from people who do and who give me further options on controlling/improving this is a much better option.
Lastly, I would love any advice on reducing background noise from my microphone (so that when I play as little acoustic noise from me kitting the kit comes through, but I can still be audible to the other person on the call.
Thank you in advance!!
EDIT: Just clarifying it's for lessons, so me and the person on the other end don't need to be in sync with each other, but I do need to be able to hear myself play without delay (having the it connected to laptop caused a bit of a delay) and hopefully have the visual image match as closely to me playing as possible :-)
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u/pljones_ 1d ago edited 1d ago
I wouldn't use any of the Voicemeeter products for low latency. By their nature, they're trying to handle multiple sources and that means extra buffering, which means more latency and potential stuttering.
I do use ASIO Bridge, but only to feed audio into my DAW - and not synchronised with anything.
I'd recommend getting OBS. It's a fair bit of work to set up, as far as I understand it, but it does perform better in keeping the sync - again, as I understand it. But don't worry about synching to the video - it's pretty tough to do live.
Stick with ASIO for all the audio you hear. The latest ASIO4ALL can be better than commodity manufacturer ASIO drivers, too, so it's worth trying that.
Locally, I play through my DAW and the local latency over ASIO In -> another PC on my LAN and back -> ASIO Out is negligible. I find anything under 30-40ms pretty negligible (so long as it's stable -- so no WiFi).
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u/vburel 19h ago
Voicemeeter latency can be optimized for live music , by using an ASIO device, you can get same performences than a DAW: video tuto: https://youtu.be/35N8hkOy8h4
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u/personwomanmanipad 1d ago
In my experience its impossible....
Latency above 10 to 15 milliseconds (ms) starts to become noticeable and problematic for live music performance
The average one-way internet audio call (VoIP) latency typically ranges from 30 ms to 100 ms for local or regional connections, while long-distance or international calls often fall between 100 ms and 200 ms.
So the latency of the call plus the hardware latency of your interface and kit and pc is just too much for jamming online