From the Dorico Pro 5.1 manual: " * Click Device Control Panel to open the device settings dialog for the selected audio device.
In the audio device settings dialog, change the buffer size in one of the following ways, as appropriate for your operating system:
For Windows systems, in the Audio buffer size section, either drag the slider to a different position or activate User definable and change the value in the Selected buffer size field."
What my screen shows when I click Device Control PanelâŚ
It looks like this setting is only available if youâre using the Generic Low Latency ASIO Driver â but I believe that the Steinberg built-in ASIO Driver is recommended in most circumstances.
Hi @rayates56,
glad to hear that you found a solution for yourself by using the older Generic ASIO driver.
The new Steinberg Built-in ASIO driver indeed has a fixed buffer size, but talking to the developer he agreed that a slider for buffer size adjustment is needed also in this new driver. So canât tell, yet, when such new version comes out, but it will at some stage.
There is actually no magic about the buffer size. Itâs just that low buffer sizes mean higher strain on the main CPU and you more easily run into overload situations, so adjusting to higher buffer sizes stabilises the situation in terms of audio drop outs.
But the buffer size also has a consequence on the latency. Especially in audio recording you want to have a latency as small as possible, which therefore requires low buffer sizes. You see the trade off between stable audio and latency? So rule of thumb is, make the buffer size as small as possible (low latency) but also as big as necessary (stable audio).
Thank you for the information, Ulf. I do no audio recording, so I think stability is all I need.
But, does âaudio recordingâ also refer to MIDI input? I find more latency there (keypress => note being placed) than I was accustomed to in Finale and it is my greatest source of note entry errors, even after months of trying to adapt. Anything that would reduce that latency would be welcome.
Yes, I did not mention that, but the buffer size has also an impact on the latency of the VSTInstruments. So there as well, the bigger the buffer size the bigger the latency.
But, to clarify, the MIDI input latency that is the problem for me is the lag between the keypress and the placement of the note on the staff. I usually have the audio turned down when doing MIDI note entry because the lag is so distracting.
The audio sound of the note when using MIDI input is, I had hoped, a separate and parallel process and thus subject to lag without affecting note identification and placement in the score. I think I had assumed this because of the (almost miraculous) ability of Dorico to handle all kinds of editing while MIDI playback is occurring simultaneously.
If those are not separate, parallel processes, could it be possible to have the option added of turning off the audio processing of the MIDI note entirely so that MIDI note entry could be smoother?
The latency compensation is set to 0, but is I think irrelevant since I am doing only step entry pitch-before-duration. I press the MIDI keyboard note, then the duration key and, if I go too fast to the next MIDI keyboard note, the first note pitch is not registered in time and usually appears as the last previous note that I had entered. Example:
See, we are entering here the terrain of Dorico internal handling of MIDI events, which Iâm not familiar with; my expertise is only on the audio engine side.
But why not playing a bit with that compensation value and see, maybe it does have an impact, I would not rule it out straight away.
