Helix latency versus a tube amp

[datacommando]

30 minutes ago, jabziz said:

          “Raise a ticket with Customer Support and have it checked out.“

 

If these other things to check out don't solve it, I certainly will. 

 

If anyone else is trying to help, keep in mind I’m not saying i can hear a 2ms delay. I’m saying that i can split my guitar, go into 2 rigs, and to my ears the sound is coming out at different times. 

 

Based on what some of you are saying this must be a delay of more than 2ms.

 

That being said, it sounds like that isn’t normal. I’m taking from these posts that normal latency of a device like this vs an amp shouldn't be audible. I’m fine with that. I prefer it actually. Between my investments in the LT and Powercab Plus, i’d like it to work out. :) 

 

someone pointed out that this wasnt a problem until recently.  It wasnt until recently that i had another example playing at the same time. This may have been an issue all along. Ill also be the first to say the band i was in probably wasnt tight enough to point it out. :)

 

 

 

Hi again jabziz,

 

O.K. If  you play guitar using just your Helix LT on it's own into your Power Cab everything sounds normal and good.

Only when you connect a second "regular" amp does this "XX ms" delay become noticeable and distracting to the point where it makes it difficult to play in time.

 

This narrows it down to, what "box" is being used to split the signal between the regular amplifier and your Helix LT. What is this other amp and how are you connecting it, what cables are you using etc.

 

These are the important things that you have not told us. It may help to figure out what is causing you to perceive this "latency:" 

 

Did you ever have this sort of problem prior to adding/attaching the other amp?

Just ask yourself, "what changed for it to sound so bad/wrong?"
 

Have you ever played using a regular dual amp rig before which sounded perfect?

 

Where did the figure of 2ms delay come from and how did you detect it actually is 2ms delay?

 

Are we dealing with some sort of psych-acoustic phenomenon?

 

Help us to help you.

[jabziz]

3 hours ago, datacommando said:

O.K. If  you play guitar using just your Helix LT on it's own into your Power Cab everything sounds normal and good.

Only when you connect a second "regular" amp does this "XX ms" delay become noticeable and distracting to the point where it makes it difficult to play in time.

 

This narrows it down to, what "box" is being used to split the signal between the regular amplifier and your Helix LT. What is this other amp and how are you connecting it, what cables are you using etc.

 

These are the important things that you have not told us. It may help to figure out what is causing you to perceive this "latency:" 

 

Did you ever have th

 

I never noticed it before doing the amp plus modeler combo. Id never tried that before. I have done 2 amps without issue. To answer a question further down.

 

The box is a morley george lynch tripler. Perhaps its slower to some outputs. Ill try swapping them. Its 1/4” out to the helix and amp. Amp to cab. No pedals. Helix to powercab plus.

 

2 ms. This was someone elses number. I believe they were saying that an expected 2 ms of delay would occur in a modeler due to conversion but nobody would be able to tell. I never suggested a number. I havent measured beyond “hey i can hear something...”

[datacommando]

13 hours ago, jabziz said:

 

I never noticed it before doing the amp plus modeler combo. Id never tried that before. I have done 2 amps without issue. To answer a question further down.

 

The box is a morley george lynch tripler. Perhaps its slower to some outputs. Ill try swapping them. Its 1/4” out to the helix and amp. Amp to cab. No pedals. Helix to powercab plus.

 

2 ms. This was someone elses number. I believe they were saying that an expected 2 ms of delay would occur in a modeler due to conversion but nobody would be able to tell. I never suggested a number. I havent measured beyond “hey i can hear something...”

 

Well, AFAIK, the Morley 3x Box shouldn’t be an issue and the only extra on the Lynch version is the added boost section.

 

Then we have the actual delay time that you are hearing. Your are using “2ms” as that’s what you think you should expect. I feel certain that you aren’t experiencing 2ms as the would be imperceptible (unless you have super powers). I would expect you to have a audible delay (hey, I can hear something) in the range that most people would describe as “doubling” starting at somewhere around 10ms and up to 30ms, “slapback” is generally more noticeable as a single “wet” repeat all the way up to 100ms. Therefore, if you have an audio signal drifting  that far off target, I would once again suggest you contact Line 6, because that is certainly not what is expected from a Helix LT.

 

From the information you have supplied, I’m sorry I cannot be more helpful, but without being able to hear what you are hearing, I’m stuck!

[phil_m]

18 hours ago, jabziz said:

 

I never noticed it before doing the amp plus modeler combo. Id never tried that before. I have done 2 amps without issue. To answer a question further down.

 

The box is a morley george lynch tripler. Perhaps its slower to some outputs. Ill try swapping them. Its 1/4” out to the helix and amp. Amp to cab. No pedals. Helix to powercab plus.

 

2 ms. This was someone elses number. I believe they were saying that an expected 2 ms of delay would occur in a modeler due to conversion but nobody would be able to tell. I never suggested a number. I havent measured beyond “hey i can hear something...”

 

The end to end latency through the Helix is between 2 and 2.5ms... It's not something that really anyone is going to notice. It should certainly not be an audible delay. I'm wondering if you possibly have direct monitoring turned in your DAW for the Helix track. In that scenario, the Helix's signal would be processed through your interface's converters and through your DAW, and then you'd hear it. In that scenario you can very easily have latency in the 20 to 30ms range, depending how you have your interface set up.

[jabziz]

I get that.

 

i didn't day 2 ms. 

 

There is no daw.

 

there is a guitar split into 2 rigs. One is a peavey 6505 mh and 1x12 cab. The other is a helix lt and powercab 112.

 

playing through both. After adjusting volume to appear the same on both sides. (I know. Not ideal, but ears is what matters right?)       I noticed what i would call a delay.

 

that is the only problem im bringing up.

 

Ill try testing the splitter. Though i agree that would be unlikely.

 

Next i’ll strip the helix down to an empty patch then start building. Perhaps there is too much going on and its built up to an audible difference. Whatever ms that is. I am using a 3rd party ir. (I didnt just say a third party ir would cause Xms of delay, im saying ill look at that part of the signal chain as something that may contribute)

 

(Again, im not concerned with numbers. I dont own anything that measures in ms. Ive offered zero measurements)

 

if nothing changes there ill bring my old gt-100 up from the basement and see what happens with it. Do i hear something similar.

 

if at the end of those comparisons i feel there is something that needs addressed, i’ll hit up support. No worries there. 

 

Thanks again for the feedback and tips.

 

ill get to the bottom of it

[phil_m]

14 minutes ago, jabziz said:

I get that.

 

i didn't day 2 ms. 

 

There is no daw.

 

there is a guitar split into 2 rigs. One is a peavey 6505 mh and 1x12 cab. The other is a helix lt and powercab 112.

 

playing through both. After adjusting volume to appear the same on both sides. (I know. Not ideal, but ears is what matters right?)       I noticed what i would call a delay.

 

that is the only problem im bringing up.

 

Ill try testing the splitter. Though i agree that would be unlikely.

 

Next i’ll strip the helix down to an empty patch then start building. Perhaps there is too much going on and its built up to an audible difference. Whatever ms that is. I am using a 3rd party ir. (I didnt just say a third party ir would cause Xms of delay, im saying ill look at that part of the signal chain as something that may contribute)

 

(Again, im not concerned with numbers. I dont own anything that measures in ms. Ive offered zero measurements)

 

if nothing changes there ill bring my old gt-100 up from the basement and see what happens with it. Do i hear something similar.

 

if at the end of those comparisons i feel there is something that needs addressed, i’ll hit up support. No worries there. 

 

Thanks again for the feedback and tips.

 

ill get to the bottom of it

 

Officially confused now, as your first post on this thread talks about recording the Helix through an interface into a DAW...

 

As far as the 2ms, that is the measured latency - it's been verified by a bunch of different people over the years. Adding more blocks does increase the latency, but it's in a negligible way. A preset with both processor paths near the DSP limit would be closer to the 2.5ms measurement than the 2ms. Again, it's not something someone would notice. If you're using an analog input into the Powercab, there would be another round of conversion there, so that might be another 2ms. So you're total latency would be up between 4 and 5ms. Again, generally not something you're going to notice while playing. The fact is, though, that there is some latency just because you're dealing with digital equipment. So you may notice a little weirdness just because you're dealing with an offset. It's the same reason that digital effects don't work well in parallel effects loops.

 

So just to clarify, I'm not saying that a latency of a few milliseconds won't be noticeable when compared to a parallel analog signal with no latency. I'm saying that by itself, that slight latency won't be noticed. Most people can tolerate latency up 8 - 10ms, it seems. But if you creating a parallel analog path, you're setting things up to be problematic by design.

 

 

[Thark]

On 4/3/2017 at 1:40 PM, MusicLaw said:

 

Unless you are using air compression hoses for your cables, one foot of electrical cable does not impart any noticable lethargy! 

 

Electricity moves at the speed of light: 186,000 miles per Second. 

Sound moves at 767 miles per Hour; a crawl by comparison. 

 

Since electrons have mass they cannot travel at the speed of light. Only massless particles can do so.

 

In another life I was a magnetic resonance spectroscopist for many, many years. So many, in fact that I wrote a book about it. One of the things in the book was a calculation of the average speed of electrons through a wire. It turns out to be *really* slow, so much so that you could easily walk faster than the current in a wire. It seems counterintuitive because when you turn on a light it comes on more or less instantly. I didn’t believe it at first so I checked and rechecked the calculation and sure enough, it’s that slow. Also, electromagnetism is fantastically powerful, far more so than gravity. Since a moving current of electrons produces a magnetic field (a relativistic effect BTW) the strength of which is dependent on its speed a current moving at the speed of light would produce a magnetic field of gigantic proportions.

 

Sorry for the rant but I’m still in lecture mode after only a year or so of retirement.

[Kilrahi]

19 minutes ago, Thark said:

It turns out to be *really* slow, so much so that you could easily walk faster than the current in a wire.

 

That seems pretty impossible to believe. I'd be very curious to see the supporting stuff for that. 

 

Also, just as a side note, it can't include all types of signals, since an optical cable literally uses light to send its signals. 

 

The below seems to break it down - maybe you were exaggerating with the whole "walking" thing, but I took you literally.

 

http://scienceline.ucsb.edu/getkey.php?key=2910

[Thark]

 

4 hours ago, Kilrahi said:

 

That seems pretty impossible to believe. I'd be very curious to see the supporting stuff for that. 

 

Also, just as a side note, it can't include all types of signals, since an optical cable literally uses light to send its signals. 

 

The below seems to break it down - maybe you were exaggerating with the whole "walking" thing, but I took you literally.

 

http://scienceline.ucsb.edu/getkey.php?key=2910

 

It is hard to believe, isn’t it? If you google “electron drift velocity” and look at the wikipedia article, there is a worked example with real numbers. You will be amazed at the result. This is the calculation that I included in my book.

 

Yes optical cables are different although I suspect that the speed of light in these cables is significantly less than in a vacuum.

 

I had a quick look at the link and immediately saw a problem: in answer 1, electricity and light are both lumped into electromagnetic radiation whereas this is so only for light. Electricity is the motion of electrons through an conductor and does not involve em radiation directly. Answer 2 also says that light and electricity are the same thing. They aren’t. Answer 3 isn’t bad except for the 1/100th the speed of light. As the wikipedia article shows it’s considerably less. Answer 4 is a bit confused but the part about Maxwell is pretty much right. Maxwell’s equations are magnificent, if somewhat obtuse.

 

Here I am ranting again. :)

[jester700]

The speed of electricity isn't the same thing as the speed of electron movement. Electricity travels through copper at a significant fraction of the speed of light - around 95%. You could think of electricity as a wave and atoms (and their electrons) as the medium.

[datacommando]

1 hour ago, Thark said:

 

Here I am ranting again. :)

 

 

Hi Prof Thark,

 

This is really interesting stuff, because I fell for that old thing of if you guitar cable was 300,000km long you will only perceive a one second delay in your signal. Yeah, right, who is going to be listening that far away. Anyhow, I digress, because what I wanted to know is if you may be able to throw any light on the issue raised by brother “jabziz” . Do you think it is psycho- acoustic?

 

We are all aware of the speed of light, but any idea on the speed of dark?

[jabziz]

“jabziz”    Auto suggested username. I hate it. I shoulda changed it....

 

my plan is to ignore my new amp and stick with the helix as i wrap up something im working on. I’ll be paying close attention to my tracks in regards to “does this sound like its being delayed any?” as I record them. 

 

It may all be in my head. The comment of “its the transients that make it seem like its ahead of the other” (im paraphrasing) may be exactly whats happening. 

 

Anyway, if i still feel something is off, i’ll dig in more. 

 

The rest of this is over my head. Thanks again!

[reginaldStjohn]

 

20 hours ago, jester700 said:

The speed of electricity isn't the same thing as the speed of electron movement. Electricity travels through copper at a significant fraction of the speed of light - around 95%. You could think of electricity as a wave and atoms (and their electrons) as the medium.

 

+1

 

[Thark]

On 7/2/2019 at 4:44 PM, jester700 said:

The speed of electricity isn't the same thing as the speed of electron movement. Electricity travels through copper at a significant fraction of the speed of light - around 95%. You could think of electricity as a wave and atoms (and their electrons) as the medium.

 

Yes, this is a good way to look at it.