[LAU] outfitting a computer for songwriting in linux?

Ralf Mardorf ralf.mardorf at alice-dsl.net
Sun Jul 26 09:42:30 UTC 2015


On Sun, 26 Jul 2015 11:01:46 +0200, Jeremy Jongepier wrote:
>In the meanwhile the whole planet is using USB for MIDI.

That's an assertion without substance.

>Please explain what is wrong with it, if possible with test results or
>something else that confirms your assumption. I've never experienced
>any jitter issues, not even with external MIDI gear.

Search the LAU and LAD mailing list archives or edit a
four-on-the-floor kick MIDI track. Play an external synth and make an
audio recording of that kick, record the kick again and you'll notice
that the kicks are never in sync, you'll hear an early reflection like
shift or a moving phasing. If you make syncopated or measure free music
this is a serious issue, but it already is an issue if you want to
sync four-on-the-floor kicks or similar. A lot of people claim that
MIDI is not good enough to record "hand made" music, it always suffers
from quantisation. To record really "hand made" music there's the need
to do audio recordings. That's not completely wrong, but MIDI isn't that
bad as many people nowadays think that it is. If you use a C64 or Atari
ST and sync by klick or by SMPTE to a tape recorder, you get perfect
sync.
I noticed that shift of MIDI events is related to the used audio
latency. The longer the latency is, the less precise is the timing of
the recorded MIDI events on audio tracks. I never was able to get less
audio latency than 5.3 ms (-r48000 -p256 -n2).
FWIW there's zero audible (and perhaps zero measurable) jitter when
using internal virtual synth. We don't know what exactly the OP want's
to do, but she seemingly does use external gear.


More information about the Linux-audio-user mailing list