GuitarHero/RockBand fans... side project anyone?

[Manu]

On 13 December 2013 19:22, John Colvin <john.loughran.colvin at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Friday, 13 December 2013 at 03:13:16 UTC, Manu wrote:
>
>> On 13 December 2013 04:52, John Colvin <john.loughran.colvin at gmail.com
>> >wrote:
>>
>>  On Thursday, 12 December 2013 at 18:31:58 UTC, Joseph Rushton Wakeling
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>  On 12/12/13 19:15, Iain Buclaw wrote:
>>>>
>>>>  You know, I've never had that... but then again I haven't had the
>>>>> fortune of being in a band where distance between the first and back
>>>>> musicians is > 200 metres.  (Because sound doesn't travel *that* slow
>>>>> ;)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> Well, it's not _just_ about the speed of sound, there are also things
>>>> like the speed of attack of different instruments and so on.
>>>>
>>>> Then again, ever been to a performance of one of those pieces that ask
>>>> for some musicians to be placed in different locations round the back of
>>>> the concert hall for spatial effects?  Things can get fun with that ...
>>>> :-)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  Only in the recording studio - if the time it takes for sound to leave
>>>>
>>>>> your instrument, into the microphone, through the walls into the
>>>>> studio booth, into the mixer (and assuming digital) from the mixer to
>>>>> the sound card, to the DAW software mixer which is taking the
>>>>> recording and mixing it in with the playing tracks (optional live
>>>>> effects processing being done) back to the sound card, to the mixer,
>>>>> through the walls into the studio room, into the headphones of the
>>>>> receiver playing the instrument...  is greater than 22ms, then the
>>>>> person playing experiences a delay in the time he plays to the time he
>>>>> hears himself in the song.  If that happens, you are not in a good
>>>>> situation. =)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> So, if your latency is 22ms, think of how that corresponds to sound
>>>> travelling in space: you only need to be separated by about 7.5m for
>>>> that
>>>> kind of delay to kick in.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Delay between people isn't really the problem, it's delay in hearing
>>> yourself that's the killer. Although 22ms is the normally quoted limit
>>> for
>>> noticing the latency, it actually depends on frequency. Even regardless
>>> of
>>> frequency, i typically find that anything less than 64ms is ok, less than
>>> 128ms is just about bearable and anything more is a serious problem for
>>> recording a tight-sounding performance.
>>>
>>>
>> Latency between recording musicians has a strange effect of gradually
>> slowing the tempo down. Ie, if both musicians are playing with headphone
>> monitors or something, and there is a small latency in the system.
>> If you are playing together, but then you feel a 20ms latency between you
>> and the other musician, you tend to perceive yourself as playing slightly
>> too fast, and then adjust by slowing a fraction, the same thing happens in
>> the other direction, so you're both constantly slowing by a fraction to
>> maintain perception of synchronisation, and the tempo gradually slows.
>> It's almost an unconscious psychological response, quite hard to control
>> in
>> the studio.
>>
>
>
> Interesting. This isn't a phenomena that I've experienced to be honest,
> generally people's tendency to speed up has dominated most sessions that
> are without click.
>

Haha, that's true. Naturally, I've observed that too, but that just happens
all the time regardless! :)
Maybe it requires a slightly higher latency than 20ms, but it does reach a
point where the interplay between musicians who are each trying to
unconsciously re-sync against the others causes some weird changes in
overall tempo.
When it reaches the conscious stage, then they just say it's broken and
demand the tech to fix it. But there's a window there that triggers the
unconscious micro-re-sync efforts, and that's where it gets weird in my
experience.


Also, 20ms round-trip latency? That's unusually small.
>

God I hope not. Depends on how many digital effects are in the loop I guess.
It's not show-stopping latency, but I start to feel it personally at 20ms
or so. Like I said before though, I might have trained myself to be
hyper-sensitive.
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