[sdiy] Atari latency, was:Camel*ont* soft Da synth!

[elmacaco]

Low latency for a sequencer simply means that when you hit the key on the
master you get the sound immediately from the module, with the signal
patched through the sequencer.  Some older sequencers will introduce latency
if there is too much midi info being sent, like lots of CC's or sysex, but I
am merely stating this from subjective view, if you don't notice it and it
doesn't cause a problem, that's low latency.  Claims of zero are just
exaggeration and there are better ways of saying the truth of it without
exaggeration.  This is especially true when running lots of midi channels,
perhaps the availability of multiple outs on the atari helped keep that to a
minimum?

Tight timing is firstly a stable clock, and one that preserves the timing
you play into it with, obviously with no quantizing. and with quantizing on,
tight timing means that the way the sequencer moves the notes you play is in
a useful way and not something that is hard to get the results one is after.
I suppose this is something in how the sequencer deals with notes that are
at the border between two steps of quantization, but it is merely a
perceptual thing once again.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Ingo Debus" <debus at cityweb.de>
To: "SynthDIY" <synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl>
Sent: Saturday, May 06, 2006 7:48 AM
Subject: [sdiy] Atari latency, was:Camel*ont* soft Da synth!


>
> Am 04.05.2006 um 19:00 schrieb elmacaco:
>
> > Yes, the Atari Machines are known for both their tight timing and
> > low midi
> > latency, I rarely hear about the midi latency because it seems non
> > existent.
> >
>
> Hm, what *is* latency here? How is it defined?
>
> On a (hardware or software) synth, latency is the time between the
> arrival of the MIDI message and the actual starting of the sound. But
> we're talking about the Atari ST, thus certainly not about a soft
> synth, correct? What does latency mean for a MIDI sequencer? The
> difference between the time stamp value recorded along with a MIDI
> event and the actual time when this event occurred? As long as this
> 'latency' is constant, it could easily be compensated by the
> sequencer program.
> And even if it couldn't, what's the difference between "tight timing"
> and "low MIDI latency" then?
>
> Ingo