I realize this has been discussed before but i can't find a solution to my latency problem. I'm using a Roland TD9 together with Sonar Producer and no matter what i try i keep getting a delay when playing. It isn't much but enough to make playing along with the guitars or bass or a click near impossible. Playing live with other people is not possible either because the drum is always a fraction of a second behind. Is there anything i can do about this? It's driving me nuts! The only way to record songs is to play the drum track first and then fill in the rest. This can't be the only option right? Every other instrument is fine. The guitars, mic, keyboard...just the midi drums have a delay when playing. I'm using a SSD ddrive on a fast enough computer with plenty of ram. For input i use a Roland Quad Capture. I checked every possible setting, i spent days trying different options but nothing seems to be able to fix this. I can't believe it's non fixable. That means that every single person out there with electronic drums has the same problem. That's hard to believe. Thanks for your time.

Ways to reduce latench

- try another ADDA device
- upgrade your processor speed
- freeze all your other tracks to eliminate other VSTs delay latency then try your midi drum tracking.
- alternatively you can do a quick mix of existing tracks export that to a new session then try tracking your drums. This should get your latency down to an acceptable level. Then import the resulting midi track back into your original project.

Any midi tracks should be tracked early in the recording process before the project gets loaded up with VSTs and other processing which creates significant latency in the project. When you come along later to input late stage midi tracks, your just asking for frustration.

  1:Not sure what adda means. 2:I'm using a fast i7 processor. So this can't be the problem. 3:I can't accept this as a solution 4:Neither can i accept this as a solution. These last 2 options shouldn't be needed to get this working properly. There has to be something else i missed. I want to get to the source of the problem and not change the way the software works and make everything overcomplicated. Thanks for your help though.

Btw i don't understand the forum software. I click "qoute message" but it never quotes. Also it doesn't add the breaks i added in my post, putting all sentences behind each other. Sorry about this.

The forum software doesn't like post 3.xx Firefox.

You haven't told us some basics:

What drivers are you using, and what have you set your latency at?

You should be using the latest ASIO dfrivers for your Quad Capture, and make sure the intergrated soundchip is not selected in any box in the Preferences dialogue.
You say you use the Quad for input. Make sure you use it for output too.

The only way you can baseline this is to start another project with just a single instance of your drum software and one midi track. Are you still getting unacceptable delay? If so then it's your audio device (Analog to Digital/Digital to Audio device i.e. ADDA) drivers or your driver settings in Sonar. Try a lower buffer setting. If you still can't get it to perform acceptably then you need to look to another company that has better performance drivers (although I doubt this is the issue because Roland usually does a good job with this).

Always track your midi early in the project or use the global bypass for plugins if you need to track late in the game.

Hi, i'm not near my studio computer so i don't have the details. I will post the info tomorrow. Thanks a lot!

Hi Tri,


What you're looking to accomplish is *the* most timing sensitive objective.  
It can certainly be done, but you need to get round-trip latency down as low as possible.
That means using an audio interface that goes down to a 32 or 48-sample ASIO buffer size... and one that uses a small hidden safety-buffer.


The OctoCapture is a good audio interface.  It yields round-trip latency of 7.4ms at a 48-sample ASIO buffer size/44.1k.  That's not bad... but it's not low enough for your purpose.
The only way to mitigate the 7.4ms RTL is to increase the sample-rate at which you're working.
Double the sample rate... and you cut the latency of the ASIO input/output buffers in half (albeit at the expense of higher CPU use).

If doubling the sample-rate isn't possible (for performance reasons), then the only solution is to use an audio interface that yields lower round-trip latency.  RME (although not cheap) is particularly good.
ie:  The RME USB units yield 4.9ms round-trip latency at a 48-sample ASIO buffer size/44.1k
Increase the sample-rate to 96k and the round-trip latency drops to 2.2ms (96-sample ASIO buffer size/96k).  

For your purposes, I'd want round-trip latency to be in the 3ms range.
I know some folks doubt this, but as someone who's worked a lot with triggering of drum samples, there's a huge difference in feel between triggering with 3ms vs. 6+ms of latency.  It's night vs. day when it comes to feel...

Good data on the Octo capture Jim. That would definitely be an issue. I am running .7ms here as a frame of reference at 96k or 2.7ms at 48k which goes back to my first comment...you may want to look at another capture device.

Does the Quad Capture not support zero-latency monitoring? If you're monitoring through the computer, then yeh, you're going to have latency issues. I'm not a drummer, but I know that playing piano that way is nearly impossible and I imagine drums are 10x worse. But I have zero issues with latency - even on an old machine not nearly as fast as yours - because I don't monitor through the computer.