Midi Controller Without Sound Card = Delay?

Help, Support & Bugs Beginners Questions - Renoise
1

Hi!

Ive got one final question before buying a midi controller for my pc:
I dont have a sound card. (mb: asus p5k deluxe)
Will I be having delay issues?
Does it even matter?

Thanks :)

2

ASIO4All can help: http://www.asio4all.com/

I’ve managed to get latency down to 5ms with this, on an on-board sound chip.

3

If you intend to only use the audio from your external MIDI device, this might not be of big difference, it depends more or less on the OS.
MacOSX has pretty good latency values (if there is MIDI latency at all).
Windows is not the best around on MIDI, but when using the WDM drivers, you might get improved latency values.
Though i don’t know if the MPU401 controller allows you to use WDM drivers.

4

Yeah Ive got Windows Vista :)
I have no idea what WDM drivers mean or do and reading about it on wikipedia doesnt help me very much :P
I’m a huge n00b when it comes to computers hardware and Im trying to learn about this music stuff.
So do you think I can work propperly with a midi controller or should I buy a sound card first?

Thanks man :)

5

well its gone from a black and white area of “will this decrease latency” to the grey area of “will this work for ME?”

Matter of oppinion; I was using a directx card from the pentium MMX age for a good 5 or 6 years without complaining.
On the other hand I’ve never regretted putting anything off so much after getting a propper one ;)

6

WDM stands for Windows Direct Music and is a part of DirectX. These drivers have a more exclusive access to the MIDI devices on your mainboard or on the soundcard that you added to the system and cause less latency in communication between your host application and your (external) device.
What you need is a midi controller that you can attach to the PC and for the looks of the mainboard.

To attach an external MIDI device
you either need a gameport and a BIOS option where you can enable the MPU401 controller of your mainboard: and then you most likely need such a cable to connect your midi device to your gameport:

Or you purchase an external midi controller that operates through USB.
Though the only trouble with USB is that the device does not get an exclusive interrupt which may cause delays and communication errors (depending on how good the chipset handles your USB ports)
But ASUS supplies decent stuff so i don’t really doubt that will be alright.

The last option is the most safe option as you won’t have any troubles connecting your MIDI controller to any PC you might buyin the future (or any expansion you do by purchasing a newer mainboard). because the MPU401 is from a dying breed.

7

Alright thanks alot for this explanaition.
I just saw youre from the Netherlands as well so would you mind if I PM you a few questions I still have left about this subject?