Re: [iiwusynth-devel] Fw: Re: [linux-audio-dev] more about iiwusynth

[Tim Goetze]

Juan Linietsky wrote:

>On Fri, 07 Jun 2002 13:00:24 +0300
>"M. Nentwig" <address@hidden> wrote:

[...]

>> In my opinion 1 ms (441 samples) would still be acceptable for
>> real-time playing. Midi interfaces are that fast and use interrupts.

44100 / 1000 = 44.1, isn't it?

>Yes, midi interfaces use interrupts, but I was talking about what i
>think most people uses iiwusynth for, which is as sampler from
>programs such as  muse, jazz, or shake. For those, the minimum latency
>unit is 10ms. Even with that you cant really hear any delay (hey even
>a piano hammer takes around that to hit the string, or the air to pass
>through a horn). I see you are a vintage dreams fan too, i love that
>little soundfont.. we should exchange some music ;) Maybe precision
>(size of the mix block) is another value you'd like to specify from
>command line..

no serious sequencer will accept a timing resolution of 10 ms (=
linux kernel HZ on some systems). most will use the rtc if possible.

and from a musicians pov, the piano hammer is a bad example because 
it is deterministic -- you can 'get a feeling' for it because it is
the same everytime you play a note with the same strength.

the latency introduced by audio fragment sizes however is not -- when
you hit a note just before fragment start, it will be a short delay.
when you hit it just after, it will be almost the duration of the
fragment.

whatever you do for optimization, short fragment sizes are essential
for professional work imo.

tim