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

[Scott Gravenhorst]

rude66 <rude66 at gmail.com> wrote:
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>i think the latency the atari is famous for, is not that kind of latency,
>but the kind of a steady clock, playing all the notes tight, and keeping
>everything clocked. more of a playback than a recording thing.
>
>scott, an atari can handle quite a few midi tracks, controller info, sysex,
>pitch bends.. as can my mmt8's. these are 20 year old machines, running on
>16 mhz speed (atari) with a whopping 4 mb memory. if i can't reproduce thes=
>e
>tracks faithfully on a pc running 100 times faster with more than 100 times
>more memory, there is surely something not right. if a pc can't handle a
>bunch of aftertouch/sysex/ controller data..

Yes, I'm sure something would be not right, of course.  But then I understand that you
really don't want a bunch of background junk running whilst trying to produce a piece of
music with a PC sequencer.  I don't run my PCs that way, they are very lean.  I don't
even run antivirus software on those boxes and I start my recording session from a fresh
boot and run only the sequencer application while I'm doing that.  I figgered everyone
does that.  Maybe they don't.  I never implied that the Atari cannot handle lots of
tracks.  So can my PC.  I am saying that IMHO, it's not the hardware (unless it's
physically malfunctioning, that's a different deal, you *fix* that), it's generally what
you're trying to do with it that causes these problems.  My PC sequenced tracks sound
very well timed to me - unless I'm trying to put 5 lbs. of sh!t in a 2 lbs. bag.  The
size of the "bag" here isn't what the PC can process, it's the limitation of MIDI baud
rate and trying to cram too much data down it.  Yeah, if a PC can't produce a clean
result when an Atari can, there is something wrong with the PC and it needs to be fixed.
 I dare suggest that this condition would probably cause issues with applications other
than the sequencer.  Malware of any kind will cause problems as will failing hardware. 
Maybe the problem is that an Atari will simply crap out when it's broken or partially so,
whereas there are many malfunction conditions in a PC that don't cause it to die
completely, just run slowly and/or unsmoothly.  This includes malware infestations.


>2 years ago, i did a cover of an iron maiden track. some parts came from a
>midi file of the track, that included the guitar solos. in the end, i had t=
>o
>record those track by track into the mmt8, who played them flawlessly when
>the pc choked on them big time.
>and yes, i also use multiple midi ports, and then split the signal..

One thing to remember about such systems:  They are simple and their purpose is well
defined.  They do what they do.  And you would be hard pressed to infect an mmt8 or an
Atari with malware.  I'm not saying you had malware in your PC, just that malware is one
of many things that can cause this condition in a PC.  IMHO, if a PC has properly
functioning and sufficient hardware, a properly installed and configured OS, properly
installed applications, it should do just as well as any Atari.  Ataris can't be infected
by internet crap.  It's a much simpler environment.  With a PC, a user can think "This
shouldn't cause any problems" and that is a big mistake because malware is usually
designed to hide.  If you are trying to use a PC for sequencing, IMHO, you want to limit
it's multitasking to only those things that are required to do the sequencing.

The Atari is fine - but there's nothing magical about it.



>
>
>
>
>On 5/6/06, elmacaco <elmacaco at nyc.rr.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> 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, bu=
>t
>> I
>> am merely stating this from subjective view, if you don't notice it and i=
>t
>> 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 t=
>o
>> 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 ar=
>e
>> 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
>>
>>
>

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