acceptable latency?

[redhouse91]

So I'm planning on performing live as a 2-piece band. I want to use my macbook pro (2.66 ghz, 4gb ram), logic 9 (possibly mainstage 2), and my firepod. Mix everything in the box and output to 2 giant monitors in the club. We won't be playing large venues.
The most cpu-intensive tasks will be running gtr, keyboard (midi), 2 vox, and 3 mics for drums/etc. I want to use delay, rvb, comp, eq, etc.

So my question is: will the latency be too long to play well? What is an acceptable latency for a live performance. We won't be standing too far from the monitors - probably not more than 6-12 feet. that adds about 6-12 ms of delay....

thanks

[John Willett]

Originally Posted by redhouse91

What is an acceptable latency for a live performance. .....

Probably 3ms - longer gets noticeable if you are playing live with it.

Certainly this is the acceptable limit when people have been talking about digital radiomics and manufacturers trying to keep the latency below this figure (that's A/D and D/A combined).

[redhouse91]

Well in logic it says:

4.9 ms from 1.69 meters away from speakers...
if 1.69 meters is about 5.5 ft ( a little more ), and sound travels at about a foot per ms, then the actual latency is about 0....???

sorry this is getting confusing in logic.
Thanks for the help.

[AwwDeOhh]

Try and play with it.. if it seems to long, then it is!

Be forewarned: Certain plug-ins / effects will have (add) more latency than others.

Turn off anything non-essential for a live performance, and maybe substitute any that are causing too much latency with a hardware alternative.

[redhouse91]

so at 44.1 with 128 buffer it gives me a roundtrip latency of 12 ms, when standing 10 feet away, which as far as I can tell is very close to being in perfect time when I stand 10 feet away. The 256 buffer is definitely more obvious at 17.6 ms. I can't really get any lower than 128... but I don't think I will need to.

so for me 12 ms even live seems very bearable. (I had 8 other tracks besides the guitars with plugins recording simultaneously).

maybe I am just not recognizing the delay that well.

[AwwDeOhh]

Turn off ALL your plug-ins.
Now measure. Any different? (should be lower)
now, one at a time add your plug's back in, measuring each time. You'll see which plugins are adding the most latency, and maybe look for an alternative or get by without those ones.

[Remoteness]

Originally Posted by AwwDeOhh

Try and play with it.. if it seems to long, then it is!

Be forewarned: Certain plug-ins / effects will have (add) more latency than others.

Turn off anything non-essential for a live performance, and maybe substitute any that are causing too much latency with a hardware alternative.

Originally Posted by AwwDeOhh

Turn off ALL your plug-ins.
Now measure. Any different? (should be lower)
now, one at a time add your plug's back in, measuring each time. You'll see which plugins are adding the most latency, and maybe look for an alternative or get by without those ones.

AwwDeOhh, makes a lot of sense.
Just try it, you may like it...

If not, perhaps you can figure out a way to work with it or adjust the plug-ins and such (like AwwDeOhh suggests) so the latency is at its least.