Ultra Low Latency
Advanced machine-level software, ...or the user could stand a bit closer.
A team from London University's Queen Mary (QM) tentacle is rattling the tin down at Kickstarter for its "Bela" - an open source "embedded computing platform developed for high quality, ultra-low latency interactive audio". Sitting atop a BeagleBone Black, the Bela cape offers "8 analogue inputs, 8 analogue outputs and 16 …
I do, I play guitar direct into one of these that then round trips through the amp sims in Logic Pro and then back out of the interface.
https://global.focusrite.com/firewire-audio-interfaces/saffire-pro-14
Never noticed any latency. It is a problem that's already been solved.
You all realize that a generous, fat, millisecond of latency is about a foot in air?
Any normal (non-"Ultra") 'Low Latency' audio hardware can easily be much less than a millisecond. Even one millisecond implies that there's 40+ samples in the queue. This assumes you're dealing with wave files; other encoded formats have inherent latency.
So "Ultra" low latency (versus normal low latency) must be shaving off a few tens of microseconds.
Speakers? Stand closer, seriously. Orders of magnitude more effective.
Even with headphones, use duct tape to squeeze them closer to your ears. Or use earbuds, and shove them in.
Speed of sound is SLOW. Distance dominates.
Unless you're using poorly designed audio hardware that buffers stupidly, as some do.
What do you get when you fall in love?
Woo-hoo!
You are now an official backer of Bela: an Embedded Platform for Low-Latency Interactive Audio.
Now I seriously need a good excuse for the missus for both this and the pi 3 ... [toSelf]Be creative, be creative ... needa find something before she comes home tonight ...[/toSelf]
Musically, it does nothing, as it is. Instead, it's a pretty powerful tool that you can use to make something musical, like a custom affects processor, or a synth that takes some kind of unusual analogue input (I dunno, temperate sensor or a pressure pad for example).
You could think of it as a kind of Raspberry Pi geared for audio.
My current PC recording setup has a 20 ms roundtrip between audio in, processing in software and back out. This is unusable so I have to use the audio interface's direct out for monitoring of input.
My previous PC setup had a 10 ms roundtrip. This is noticable, and a bit annoying, but you can work with it.
I reckon that if you're able to perform a decent bit of non-linear processing on your signal, 1-2 ms would be fantastic. It would be a great starting point for some decent software-based sound applications.
Coming from CV/Gate to MIDI was when I first discovered latency. My Roland 100M envelope generators fired very snappily.
I want one of these .. This or the Axoloti plus Pure Data is the new equivalent to a Nord Micro Modular. A good time to be alive and to be a nerd
2 "audio" channels in+out @ 44 khz 16 bit 1 ms latency, noise levels unknown
8 "analog" channels in+out @ 22 khz 16 bit 0.1 ms latency, noise levels unknown... can also be configured as 4x 44khz or 2x 88khz
16x 44-88 khz 1 bit GPIO (presumably very low latency)
Custom DSP code runs inside the Linux kernel to avoid syscall overhead.
*No* HDMI output (they cannibalized its pins for audio I/O)
Price: £99 / $137 for the "starter kit" including a Beaglebone
Latency needs to be under ~10ms for pro music applications. Lately I've been able to achieve 2-3 ms total latency with USB pro audio interfaces, even with 20+ channels of 88khz audio, using a -lowlatency kernel on a >3ghz desktop PC. However, that's a highly complex system, prone to having issues.
This "Bela" board won't have quite the audio quality of a ~$200 USB interface with a similar number of inputs... but it can run independently of a PC, unfortunately without a monitor... could be useful for home recording (six 44khz inputs), homebrew digital guitar pedals, homebrew electronic instruments, custom audo/MIDI stuff for live performance, etc. Nice to finally see something like this.
I see... MOD website is just a disaster. Found some specs buried at http://oldsite.moddevices.com/products/quadra
So it's an Atom CPU (Minnowboard perhaps?) with just 2 inputs & outputs (24 bit 48 khz) and MIDI, in a stompbox. Runs Linux LV2 plugins. That does sound sound pretty good for a digital FX box.