Prophet 6 Ableton Live Latency

[smithymicky1]

Hi all,
Have just picked up a Steinberg ur242 audio interface to connect the Prophet to my PC and record some music in Ableton 9.
I have the Prophet connected via MIDI cable to the audio interface via MIDI Out on the Prophet and have stereo audio connection via a pair of 1/4" leads. Ableton is showing the MIDI data and sound and lets me record, however I am experiencing some MAJOR latency when recording the audio signal. I am recording using an External Instrument plugin in Live.

Does anyone have any tips to remove the latency from when I am pressing keys on the synth to having it make that sound in Live? I am assuming it is not my PC as it is 6 months old (i7 6500, 16GBDDR4 RAM, etc.) 

Cheers!
Mike

[jonpatch]

There's a setting in the option tab that says "reduced latency while monitoring" that you could try selecting, it definitely helped a bit in my case but there can still be a fair amount of latency that makes it irritating to play with as a keyboardist.

If you're hitting keys with your fingers and recording audio or mid notes, the best option I've found though is to monitor synths outside of Ableton while recording either midi notes or audio, and then adjust for latency afterwards in Ableton if needed. I'm not familiar with your interface but there should be a way to monitor directly through it. When I'm recording that way, I'll turn monitoring off for that track in Ableton so I don't hear the synth twice.

[Wolfram]

The UR242 supports Hardware monitoring, this means zero latency.
Look into the control penal of the UR242 to activate it and turn the software monitoring in Live of.

[smithymicky1]

The UR242 supports Hardware monitoring, this means zero latency.
Look into the control penal of the UR242 to activate it and turn the software monitoring in Live of.

Thanks for your reply 
I have now looked in the control panel of the UR242, and can't see a button anywhere that activates Hardware Monitoring..
Where abouts do I activate the hardware monitoring? I've included an image of my control panel.

[smithymicky1]

There's a setting in the option tab that says "reduced latency while monitoring" that you could try selecting, it definitely helped a bit in my case but there can still be a fair amount of latency that makes it irritating to play with as a keyboardist.

If you're hitting keys with your fingers and recording audio or mid notes, the best option I've found though is to monitor synths outside of Ableton while recording either midi notes or audio, and then adjust for latency afterwards in Ableton if needed. I'm not familiar with your interface but there should be a way to monitor directly through it. When I'm recording that way, I'll turn monitoring off for that track in Ableton so I don't hear the synth twice.

Hi thanks for your reply,
I activated 'reduced latency while monitoring' but it didn't seem to make any difference at all
I was really hoping this audio interface would let me record and play live latency free with Ableton. So does the adjustment for latency have to be done each time you record a sequence from your synth?

[Wolfram]

Look in this manual on page 8.
http://download.steinberg.net/downloads_hardware/UR242/UR242_documentation/Manual/ur242_en_om_a0.pdf

If you open the dspMix Fx software of the UR242 you will see a mixer which allows you to mix the signal from the input to the output.
The DAW Chanel on the right side allows you to mix the playback level of Live to the input (your Prophet).

[jonpatch]

There's a setting in the option tab that says "reduced latency while monitoring" that you could try selecting, it definitely helped a bit in my case but there can still be a fair amount of latency that makes it irritating to play with as a keyboardist.

If you're hitting keys with your fingers and recording audio or mid notes, the best option I've found though is to monitor synths outside of Ableton while recording either midi notes or audio, and then adjust for latency afterwards in Ableton if needed. I'm not familiar with your interface but there should be a way to monitor directly through it. When I'm recording that way, I'll turn monitoring off for that track in Ableton so I don't hear the synth twice.

Hi thanks for your reply,
I activated 'reduced latency while monitoring' but it didn't seem to make any difference at all
I was really hoping this audio interface would let me record and play live latency free with Ableton. So does the adjustment for latency have to be done each time you record a sequence from your synth?

You should be able to find a solution that works, it just takes some finagling depending on your hardware setup and how you want to use Live. If you're hitting keys, you want the synth to go to your audio interface and then directly to your ears with zero latency. Going from your synth to your audio interface to Ableton AND THEN to your ears will result in latency. Let your audio interface give you that immediate audio signal while you're simultaneously recording that audio or sending midi data to and from your Prophet in Ableton.

If you're talking about triggering the Prophet's hardware sequencer via Ableton, you can set a negative clock delay in the "audio MIDI" tab of preferences so that the start message is sent slightly earlier to your Prophet's sequencer allowing it to play in time with the rest of your stuff. Just make sure the midi clock in your globals on your Prophet is set to "in."

Latency adjustments usually just need to be made once, since you're adjusting it for a whole audio track, midi track, or external sequencer.