Latency and buffer underrun problems

ogy

hey, just looking for some advice
im using a decent centrino laptop (2.13ghz) and 768mb Ram, along with a tascam us-428 audio interface
i think this is a fairly decent setup but i still have latency/buffer underrun problems
best i can get on lowest buffer settings is 21ms of latency which is noticeable while playing reason sampler from midi keyboard (radium 61)
when recording audio i get buffer undernon distortions/noises/skips in time, especially if theres more than about 2 tracks of audio
its bareable for recording cos you can quantize performances and the buffer underrun isn't on every single track
but i'd like to use my midi keyboard plugged into laptop live to play vsts/reason instruments and its not reliable enough on the current setup.
which of the following would be the best way to give me a more solid setup
(1) buying more RAM
(2) Buying a better audio interface (tascam sliders etc are great but maybe its a bit old compared to some more modern m-audio stuff)
(3) Would using a seperate power source for my midi keyboard rather than usb make any difference.
(4) any thing else? (i know to turn everything running in the background like virus software etc, and switch windows to "adjust for best performacne")

any advice appreciated

squibs

I'm not familiar with the soundcard, but does it ship with both ASIO and WDM drivers? If so try both.

Have you got it set up for 32bit/192KHZ recording maybe? If so try 16bit/44.1KHz setting.

rexx le gaff

ogy wrote:

hey, just looking for some advice
im using a decent centrino laptop (2.13ghz) and 768mb Ram, along with a tascam us-428 audio interface
i think this is a fairly decent setup but i still have latency/buffer underrun problems
best i can get on lowest buffer settings is 21ms of latency which is noticeable while playing reason sampler from midi keyboard (radium 61)
when recording audio i get buffer undernon distortions/noises/skips in time, especially if theres more than about 2 tracks of audio
its bareable for recording cos you can quantize performances and the buffer underrun isn't on every single track
but i'd like to use my midi keyboard plugged into laptop live to play vsts/reason instruments and its not reliable enough on the current setup.
which of the following would be the best way to give me a more solid setup
(1) buying more RAM
(2) Buying a better audio interface (tascam sliders etc are great but maybe its a bit old compared to some more modern m-audio stuff)
(3) Would using a seperate power source for my midi keyboard rather than usb make any difference.
(4) any thing else? (i know to turn everything running in the background like virus software etc, and switch windows to "adjust for best performacne")

any advice appreciated

buy more ram, and get a new sound card

david

I use a 1.6 centrino with a Behringer FCA firewire card and get 5ms latency recording and about the same when controlling VSTi synths with no glitches

david

BTW I run a gig of ram