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Realtime group scheduling doesn't know JACKRealtime group scheduling doesn't know JACKPosted Dec 21, 2010 21:44 UTC (Tue) by jimparis (subscriber, #38647)In reply to: Realtime group scheduling doesn't know JACK by sfeam Parent article: Realtime group scheduling doesn't know JACK
You're still missing the point that the latency only matters if the computer is both taking input (e.g. midi keyboard) and also creating the output (e.g. synthesized audio). Surely you would agree that latency doesn't matter at all if you are e.g. recording singing from a microphone to accompany a guitar track you are playing back. They can be perfectly synchronized in software to match what you heard while singing.
I think my only real error was underestimating how frequently people need to either apply live digital effects or otherwise play live synthesized audio from live external triggers, which sounds like "always" from what people are saying here.
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Realtime group scheduling doesn't know JACK Posted Dec 21, 2010 21:50 UTC (Tue) by sfeam (subscriber, #2841) [Link] "Surely you would agree that latency doesn't matter at all if you are e.g. recording singing from a microphone to accompany a guitar track you are playing back."Next time you go to a performance with amplification, pay attention to what happens during the sound check. Pay particular attention to the small monitors near the front of the stage that point back at the performers so that they can hear the mix of what they are singing into the mic with the rest of the input. Chances are that you'll hear the performers request more or less feedback from the monitor, because getting it right makes it a whole lot easier to perform. You can't just sing, or play, into a vacuum and somehow know that it's coming out right. The feedback of your own mechanical actions, voice or fingers, to your ears is crucial.
Realtime group scheduling doesn't know JACK Posted Dec 21, 2010 23:21 UTC (Tue) by chad.netzer (guest, #4257) [Link]
"Surely you would agree that latency doesn't matter at all if you are e.g. recording singing from a microphone to accompany a guitar track you are playing back."
Nope. Singers like to hear some of their voice fed back to them. It's not uncommon for unconstrained musicians to move to the corner of a room, to best hear the reflection of their voice and instrument (at low latency). If they are using headphones, the audio equipment has to provide that feedback loop. It is not an "offline" operation, where latencies could be ignored (or corrected).
Realtime group scheduling doesn't know JACK Posted Dec 22, 2010 0:35 UTC (Wed) by baldridgeec (guest, #55283) [Link]
Composing, even electronica, is also "live" unless you're doing it in a MOD editor from the 90s.
When I'm playing my electronic drum kit using Hydrogen to provide the samples, BELIEVE ME, there is a very very noticeable difference between hearing your snare strike 10 ms after your stick hits the pad and 50 ms after your stick hits the pad. 50 ms is still playable if it's consistent, and if you practice at it a bit - some people use Windows, after all, so it obviously works, even if it's not ideal. :)
But 100 ms is not usable at all. A tenth-second gap means there is no relation whatsoever between the part of the phrase in your head (that is currently being conveyed through your hands to the equipment) and the part of the phrase coming into your ears and being interpreted by your brain as "what I'm playing right now." You can't force half of your brain to work 1/16 note in the past at the same time as you play what you need to for the present. It just won't work.
Realtime group scheduling doesn't know JACK Posted Dec 22, 2010 1:51 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Actually you *can* train yourself to do it: I can think of several works in which you have to (the Phase works by Steve Reich, for example). But they're rare, and it's difficult, and you really wouldn't want to do it for everything.
Realtime group scheduling doesn't know JACK Posted Dec 22, 2010 2:04 UTC (Wed) by baldridgeec (guest, #55283) [Link]
(Just looked them up, never heard of them before, interesting! I'll have to find some recordings)
From what it says on Wikipedia, it's played as a duet - i.e. the music you play is still in time with itself; your part is in phase with the other part.
Still hell to play, yeah, but it would be pretty much impossible if the sound from your own piano were to come at you with an audible delay. It would be easier to play if you were deaf - at least then nothing would interfere with the rhythm in your head.
Realtime group scheduling doesn't know JACK Posted Dec 22, 2010 12:00 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Actually one of the ways to play it *is* with headphones that pick up what you're hearing and rebroadcast it to you delayed by just enough (a changing delay): then all you have to do is keep what you hear from becoming phased! (Another common way, and probably the more effective one, is to play the second part without a tape of the first part at all, just with a metronome beat defining when the first part's beats are, then mix the two together later. But you can't do that live and it feels obscurely like cheating. Live performers generally have to do it without any artificial assistance at all, and that *is* hard.)
Realtime group scheduling doesn't know JACK Posted Dec 22, 2010 0:39 UTC (Wed) by jebba (✭ supporter ✭, #4439) [Link]
> Surely you would agree that latency doesn't matter at all if you are e.g. recording singing from a microphone to accompany a guitar track you are playing back.
Not if you are sending that voice back to them so they can hear it in the mix, which of course they have to. Send it to the singer with high latencies, and he looks at you like "WTF??!" because it throws them off rhythm, which is kind of important.
Realtime group scheduling doesn't know JACK Posted Dec 23, 2010 11:05 UTC (Thu) by jwakely (subscriber, #60262) [Link]
> You're still missing the point that the latency only matters if the computer is both taking input (e.g. midi keyboard) and also creating the output (e.g. synthesized audio).
The computer could be taking multiple inputs, both midi and audio, and having to send audio output to an effects unit when then comes *back* as input again, and sending midi output to other sound modules which might be sending their audio output directly to a speaker, not back into the computer where it could be buffered to re-sync.
It's really not as simple as just lining up a few different audio sources.
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