HD 500 and reaper latency issue

[killtuco]

In reaper, when I try to change the buffer size and bit depth, it always reverts back to 1024 buffer size and 32 bit depth. Even after I hit apply and ok. Tried multiple times, even tried requesting a different bit rate. My lag is at ~13/27 MS which makes the lag unbearable, especially with monitoring on.

 

Any way to reduce latency? I'm plugged in to my computer via USB. 

 

Thanks

[phil_m]

My advice would be to not try to direct monitor through Reaper with the HD500. You probably aren’t going to get the latency to levels that are acceptable. Line 6 drivers are really designed for situations when you’re monitoring the device directly, not through the DAW.

[hurghanico]

As already suggested by phil_m in the previous post, you get zero latency if you use the hardware direct monitoring instead of the track monitoring in your DAW.

Which thing means that you should make sure that the "hardware monitor level" in your Line6 driver control panel (see the pic below here) is not set to zero, and the monitoring of the track in your DAW is turned off.

 

 

But it could be that you wanted to try in real time some plugins eg a IR loader, in that case it would necessary to do the opposite of what said above, ie enable the track monitoring and disable the hardware direct monitoring, but the drawback of this setting is that it introduces latency, and as you said in your post you could try to lower the buffer settings to reduce it, till the point where the system can still handle the settings without audio issues.

 

Your problem is that the driver doesn't retain the settings you do in the dedicated control panel, and that surely is not normal.

 

A few ideas/workarounds to try could be:

- since the Line6 driver can be reached in two ways, ie from the windows programs menu, and from the DAW audio settings, try the way you didn't try till now, who knows, maybe it works better..

- I see that you have the version 4.2.7.7 of the driver installed, I also have a HD500 and the driver currently installed in my PC is version 4.2.7.6 and it works without issues, I guess you could try to uninstall your current driver and install the previous version (freely downloadable from here) and see if it works better on your system.

 

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All about POD HD500/X

help and useful tips

[killtuco]

So whether I access the control panel that adjust bit depth and buffer size through Reaper, or windows program manager, the device refuses to adjust. It says at 1024 and 32. I have the latest drivers installed. 

 

I'm trying to use Amplitube, which sounds great, but is seriously laggy. Even with my HD 500 editor, the latency is still ~13/27. 

 

Anything else I can try? Or explanations?

 

Thanks guys

[killtuco]

Update: Installing the previous drivers worked as far as adjusting the settings goes. Gonna do some testing now

[hurghanico]

5 hours ago, killtuco said:

Even with my HD 500 editor, the latency is still ~13/27

 

The Editor running doesn't really affect at all the audio signal latency, but it makes changing patches and tweaking some of the settings much more slow responding especially directly on the device, since any change from one side (device or editor) must be syncronized with other one, and it takes time.

 

5 hours ago, killtuco said:

Update: Installing the previous drivers worked as far as adjusting the settings goes. Gonna do some testing now

 

Great!

 

Unfortunately when using plugins in real time you are forced to use the track/DAW monitoring which never has zero latency, but it can come to acceptable levels if the PC hardware is enough powerful and with the CPU resources mostly dedicated to audio processing and not to other tasks, and the AI ASIO driver is good quality and well set.

 

If the final sound on recording should come from a plugin, a viable way/strategy to completely avoid latency could be to record a dry signal track with the POD and taking advantage of the direct hardware monitoring (zero latency), and only after applying the plugin processing.

 

- you could record the dry signal through the S/PDIF digital output connected to the S/PDIF of an external AI while using any patch to get some processing just for monitoring.

- or without having to use an external AI you could build a dual chain patch where one path has some processing just for monitoring (not to be selected/recorded in the DAW track), and the other path is empty, of which the output should be one selected/recorded in the DAW track to get the dry signal which will be processed with the plugin later.

 

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

All about POD HD500/X

help and useful tips

[joel_brown]

If you're using WIndows 10 then set the bit depth in the Windows Sound Control Panel.

[killtuco]

I installed the previous driver and it worked, but then it started blue screening my computer when I plugged in my HD 500. I seem to have fixed it by uninstalling the drivers again, and reinstalling the newest drivers.

 

The difference was that this time I only installed the HD500 drivers, I accidentally installed all the Line 6 drivers the first time. The issue of latency adjustment and blue screen seems to have gone away for now. Thank you guys, sorry for the late reply