# Superior Drummer 2.0 VST lag



## Xcaliber (Jul 20, 2016)

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I found other threads related to EZ Drummer 2 so I'm taking a shot.

I just bought and installed SD 2.0 and when I load it up as a VST in Reaper there's a terrible, unusable, lag from the time I hit the drum to when the sound comes. I programmed a midi drum track and when I play it back the lag is there at that time too. Any ideas on what I could try to get rid of it? I'm using the drivers that came with my interface and Reaper reports lag as 2.6ms. EZ Drummer worked great in the same exact setup.

Tascam US-1800 interface, Windows 10, Reaper 5.2.

Thanks in advance.


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## Winspear (Jul 20, 2016)

2.6ms is inperceptible and absolutely fine for even tracking+monitoring live instruments. Very much on the high end of performance for recording, actually. We'll have to narrow down the issue some more as it seems input latency is not related here.

Just to check: Are you recording DI guitars? If you open up a project with your current settings and do nothing but insert a guitar track and enable monitoring on it for recording, how is the latency?

I presume it's fine, as you mentioned EZDrummer was fine. To confirm, you are able to switch back and forth between the plugins right at this moment and only find lag with Superior?

Open performance monitor - are your CPU/RAM/Hardrive struggling at all?


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## noise in my mind (Jul 21, 2016)

What are your computers specs?
Have you tried adjusting your audio buffer?


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## Xcaliber (Jul 21, 2016)

EtherealEntity said:


> 2.6ms is inperceptible and absolutely fine for even tracking+monitoring live instruments. Very much on the high end of performance for recording, actually. We'll have to narrow down the issue some more as it seems input latency is not related here.
> 
> Just to check: Are you recording DI guitars? If you open up a project with your current settings and do nothing but insert a guitar track and enable monitoring on it for recording, how is the latency?
> 
> ...



Thanks for the reply. I will try that tonight, I wasn't able to get into the studio last night due to family obligations.

As for adding just a guitar track, the latency is around 2.6ms even with 2 guitar tracks, bass and EZ drummer loaded. It is an older computer, Quad Core AMD (can't remember the CPU speed at the moment), only 4GBs of RAM (which I plan to fix ASAP), single 1TB SATA hard drive.

I suspect the RAM might be the issue now that I think about it. I just never considered that since EZ Drummer ran fine...but SD has a lot more samples to load.


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## Xcaliber (Jul 21, 2016)

noise in my mind said:


> What are your computers specs?



I posted them in the last reply, but it's an older HP mid-tower with a Quad Core AMD CPU (can't remember the speed, but I think it's 3.xx), 4GB of RAM, single 1TB SATA hard drive.



noise in my mind said:


> Have you tried adjusting your audio buffer?



I have not because in the past messing with the buffer only made the latency worse. Reaper is reporting 2.6ms of latency, but I'm getting a delay only in SD.


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## Winspear (Jul 21, 2016)

Yeah 2.6ms is really good especially for those computer specs! I presume your buffer is set as low as possible, so latency will indeed go up if you alter it. You can do that to reduce CPU stress is necessary though. You can go up to about 8ms latency before it will affect your playing when tracking really.
I expect RAM is indeed your issue. Try remove a bunch of the drums from the Superior kit and see if that helps! Full RAM will slow up a lot of things in general


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## TedEH (Jul 21, 2016)

I have a tascam US1641, which might be similar. The best I've gotten when trying to reduce latency when monitoring MIDI coming in was by using the little tascam app that came with the driver. It's what you see if you hit the "ASIO Configuration..." button under Preferences->Audio->Device. That little app thingie has it's own latency setting. With that at it's lowest/fastest setting, it's almost usable in this way.... aaaaaaalmost. It's fast enough that you don't hear the delay but if you play pretty fast you can "feel" the delay. I have no idea if there's a way to reduce it more than that.

I've used some midi keyboards and things that plugged directly into the PC through USB and skipped the tascam altogether. Even with the tascam still on to monitor back through, the USB doesn't have that delayed feel that the tascam does. I haven't done this very often, so I can't say for sure, but I think this is just a limitation of the tascam interfaces.


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## Andromalia (Jul 22, 2016)

4gb of RAM is the culprit, I had similar issues with SD2 in reaper when I ony had 4Gb. Upgrading to 8gb solved it then (was quite some years ago now).


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## Xcaliber (Jul 22, 2016)

Thanks to everyone who replied and gave me ideas. I tried some things last night and ended up rebooting the machine again (2nd time since the install) and the lag disappeared. Must have been something getting hung up in the audio stack in Windows.

Look for a track featuring SD 2.0 drums to be posted in the future!


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## Xcaliber (Jul 22, 2016)

Andromalia said:


> 4gb of RAM is the culprit, I had similar issues with SD2 in reaper when I ony had 4Gb. Upgrading to 8gb solved it then (was quite some years ago now).



I'm still going to upgrade the RAM to at least 8GB soon even though it's working now. 4GB is way too low for this machine...and it's pretty cheap to buy.


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## Stijnson (Feb 23, 2017)

If possible, and hopefully you do this already, make sure SD is installed on the same drive as the OS and also as your DAW. Although yes, the main problem is your RAM, I had the same issue with 8gb of ram on my old pc. I usually turned of all the fx for tracking to make things easier. If you have any cab IRs or reverbs running, turn those off for tracking atleast!


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