Help/suggestions dealing with MIDI to USB-MIDI latency

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martibs
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Help/suggestions dealing with MIDI to USB-MIDI latency

Post by martibs »

So my home studio is a hybrid setup of analog and digitally connected devices into my DAW. The analog devices are connected to the preamps of my Behringer audio interface. The digital devices are two Elektron synths (Digitakt and Digitone), which are connected via USB (for both audio and MIDI).
The devices are all connected and time synced via MIDI, and a hardware sequencer (Elektron Octatrack) is the master clock, and send MIDI start/stop. The sequencer only has traditional MIDI out, no USB-MIDI. It is connected to the MIDI input of the audio interface.
I'm multitrack recording everything into Ardour.

Everything is working fine, except for one small issue: When the master sequencer sends the MIDI start message, there is a small delay/latency as the signal goes into the audio interface, via the computer, and out to the USB connected devices. I'm running at reasonably low buffer size (128/3), so the delay isn't too bad. But it is still apparent when zooming in on the waveform, and I'd rather do without nudging the tracks if I could. Also, layering sounds accross analog-digital sources is out of the question.

So I wonder if it's possible/feasible to remedy this in any way? Perhaps by adding a delay to the incoming analog audio signals, so that they hit the DAW in time with the digital signal? If so, how do I determine how much latency there is?

Some rudimentary illustrations:
MIDIchart.PNG
MIDIchart.PNG (23.87 KiB) Viewed 7974 times
Audiochart.PNG
Audiochart.PNG (24.72 KiB) Viewed 7974 times
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LAM
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Re: Help/suggestions dealing with MIDI to USB-MIDI latency

Post by LAM »

in mix, nobody can hear your screen

martibs
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Re: Help/suggestions dealing with MIDI to USB-MIDI latency

Post by martibs »

I'm familiar with that page, yes. But how can I use latency compensation in front of Jack to help me in my case? The signal is arrives out of sync into Jack. Putting a latency compensation in front of Jack would merely delay the signal coming from both the USB synths and the audio interface.
Or is there any way I can differantiate between the streams when setting up Jack latency?
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Re: Help/suggestions dealing with MIDI to USB-MIDI latency

Post by LAM »

The first thing that comes to mind is: https://x42-plugins.com/x42/x42-nodelay

But I have no first hand experience on that, so I'd wait others for further suggestions.

in mix, nobody can hear your screen

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