****I am a composer active in various subgenres of electronic music (mostly the more experimental ones), but I also write songs, record vocals for them and play keyboards, acoustic and electric guitar. I should make clear though that I don’t record more than one instrument at a time, that means no band, other musicians or other apparent reasons to arm-record more than two tracks at the same time, and I say two because sometimes, (not always even), I also record vocals. In any case, it’s either a synth (audio or midi) or one guitar + vocals AT MOST.
Apart from my solo work, I am also trying getting into scoring for films, video art, theater plays and video games. That doesn’t mean I’m Hanz Zimmer though of course, or that I am going to record an orchestra or something. I am very much dependent on vst instruments and Kontakt libraries so I’d like to be able to work with a couple of CPU-hungry VST instruments such as Omnisphere without hiccups.
So, initially I was going to build a system around the i9-9900K, because well… Intel is what where we’ve all started from… Then I got to know about Ryzen 9 and 3900x and decided to choose that instead, since it simply seems to perform better for less money and my budget is limited. I was (and still am) pretty confident it will cover my needs when it comes to cpu power but then I started hearing all those whispers about latency causing all kinds or trouble and saw this article
(that I should admit I don’t understand 100%), and I am worried whether purchasing a 3900x would be a bad choice.
When it comes to latency, the only time I had to worry about, was like 15 years ago with the “keys pressed on a midi keyboard – note playing delayed” latency, but I haven’t faced something like that with post 2005 Computers/audio interfaces, even with an old, poor i3 I used to work. So is the problem random stuttering, audio dropouts and crackles? That’s even worse if so/if true. I do understand it also has to do with buffersize but again, I don’t quite understand whether I am gonna be affected. As I’ve said I am used in working with very weak equipment so I’ve only ever messed with buffersize trying to make a weak CPU, 4 GB or ram and 5200 rpm hard drive laptop (terrible, I know, that’s why I am building a new system) stop giving me asio and cpu overload spikes. Of course that didn’t solve the problems, cause the system is weak, but I’m just saying I’ve worked with a couple of tracks with a buffersize as high as 256 or even 512 samples (recording was fine, not being able to load as many plugins as I’d want wasn’t, but again, I don’t think that’s a buffer/latency issue), so I am not even sure whether those latency issues occur in a level close enough to affect me.
- Can a kind soul please explain, even by linking to sources for additional reading, what the problem is with simple words?
- More importantly and even if 1). isn’t possible, since I’ve explained my workflow and what I expect from my new system, can you tell me whether those latency issues is something I should be concerned of to the point I should simply stay away from the 3900x? Or is it something that will not affect me and I have nothing to worry about?
- Since I understand that audio interface drivers may also have to do something with that, does anyone use UR22mkII along with a 3900x on Windows?
I could really use some help here, cause I stand confused right in between seasoned pros with expensive studios (who I respect of course, but I can’t help but wonder whether those latency issues might be problem for them but not for my intended home studio workflow), and the AMD and Intel fanboys whose opinion should be taken with a grain of last at best…
TLDR: Do those documented Ryzen 3900x latency issues mean there’s a good chance to ran into audio dropouts, crackling, crashes and all kinds of trouble if I just record two channels at the same time at most and I just want a powerhouse to handle a couple of CPU-hungry VST instruments/plugins on my sessions i.e should I simply avoid 3900x and choose i9-9900K instead?