7 ms·

Does this mean we will finally get decent musicmaking apps on Android? A decade after iOS, I guess it comes in from the "better late than never department", bu

Does this mean we will finally get decent musicmaking apps on Android? A decade after iOS, I guess it comes in from the "better late than never department", but I am happy. Apple seems to have lost its focus on the creative usage of their devices, and it has somewhat stagnated (compared to the initial explosion), plus iOS apps tend to be pricey. Apple's decision to not include the headphone jack effectively puts the kibosh on their realtime audio / musicmaking apps. The latency on AirPods is atrocious. You press a key on a virtual keyboard, and count to three before you hear a sound. Yes, this is probably solved by a dongle. Eh, I'd rather carry my Yamaha Reface DX around than think about that -- and the developers are going to have a FunTime(tm) explaining this to the users. (The sole reason musicians love iDevices so much is the JustWorks(tm) aspect - well, that just went out the window). This Android API just might start a new wave. The video appeals to the synth nerd in me. The gear, the T-Shirt, the code samples doing the right thing. I am looking forward to what this will bring us.

telesilla 8y ago
Have you tried Ableton's Link technology on Apple? I know a few DJs who find this solution works well as it will sync with their desktop DAW.
- romwell 8y ago
  I haven't - it seems to be an orthogonal technology to what is being discussed here.
puzzle 8y ago
Raph Levien worked for years on improving Android audio latency. I had a great chat with him a long ago about emulating the DX7, APIs and so on. I thought they already managed to get numbers to reasonable levels (after adding tighter requirements to the Android certification suite, among others) and even gave a talk at I/O. I'm surprised he's not involved in this, but then this is C++; he's been really into Rust for a while and perhaps back to working on typography alone — assuming he's still at Google, on the Android team.
- raphlinus 8y ago
  Wrong on both counts. However, I'm very much back in the audio synthesis game, and will give a talk at next month's SF Rust Meetup on the topic.
  - 90minuteAPI 8y ago
    Looking forward to it! It has always seemed to me like such a great application of the language, having done a fair amount of low-latency A/V programming in the C[++] realm.
  - wwweston 8y ago
    Would love to hear you're planning to put up video and/or slides -- that way I don't have to drive up from Los Angeles. Or get around the waitlist of 30 people for a full event. :)
    - raphlinus 8y ago
      Yes to both, and also plan to write blogs about the content, and documentation for the library as it matures. I'm gratified to see the interest!
  - zengid 8y ago
    Looking forward to seeing your results with making rust work on audio and a cross plat gui. I'm a rust noob but willing to try and help if possible since I want to make audio apps with a sane language like rust.
- pjmlp 8y ago
  Raph Levien has left Google. https://raphlinus.github.io/personal/2018/08/28/a-new-adventure.html https://raphlinus.github.io/personal/2018/08/28/a-new-advent...
Ycros 8y ago
I originally bought an iPad just for music stuff, but a lot of the time I'm hooking it up to an external audio interface for better quality IO and midi. I think that iOS' support for USB Audio and USB Midi devices is also a large part of what helped it build an ecosystem of decent music making apps. I agree that not having a headphone jack combined with the unacceptable latency of bluetooth makes it unusable for on-the-go music making. As for pricing, I think that won't change on Android. Music making is a niche market, and these apps are not cheap to develop.
- giancarlostoro 8y ago
  > I think that iOS' support for USB Audio and USB Midi devices is also a large part of what helped it build an ecosystem of decent music making apps. I hate to go there but I think the other factor is standardized hardware. You're guaranteed certain hardware setups for iOS devices, for Android it's anybody's guess really whether a phone can support some features or not. It would be nice if all Android phones had USB C, of course it would of been nicer if USB C had better regulation since now all USB C interfaces are like... Ah well a guy can dream can't he.
mrpippy 8y ago
Google is only interested in tablets that run ChromeOS, and just announced one without a headphone jack. Not sure if the low-latency audio is making it to the CrOS/Android environment either.
lathiat 8y ago
I'm not sure how they are doing it, but if you enable "Live Listen" mode with AirPods (basically turns the iphone into a microphone and the AirPods into a hearing aid) in iOS12 the latency is almost imperceptible. https://www.engadget.com/2018/06/05/live-listen-ios-12-apple-airpods/ https://www.engadget.com/2018/06/05/live-listen-ios-12-apple... When using this mode to listen to my TV, I can just tell that there is a delay between the real sound and those from the AirPods but it's not long enough a delay that I can't understand the speech or really bothers me. If anyone has technical info I'd love to know. As I have also witnessed that in normal application you easily have 1-2 seconds of latency. Obviously videos synchronize with it but it's not ideal for games etc. I do wonder if it's a matter of some settings the apps need to potentially set or some such. If you think about it calls are also lower latency than this .. though they use a different BT audio profile (HFP/HSP) that is mono instead of the A2DP Stereo Protocol. Last of all I was surprised Apple didn't come up with some custom protocol mode for AirPods that allows Stereo+Mic. Gaming consoles do this on 2.4GHz even with multiple controllers so it seems possible in theory (though perhaps maybe not alongside 2.4GHz WiFi? not sure). Would love more insight on all the above. EDIT: Side note to the OP, just use a lightning adapter :-)
- romwell 8y ago
  >When using this mode to listen to my TV, I can just tell that there is a delay... That absolutely destroys it for music apps. A decent latency for music apps is under 10ms. You don't hear it, you feel it when you press a key and you don't hear the sound immediately. It prevents you from playing fast, even if you kind of adjust to it. Your brain is very sensitive to timing differences. Hit a drum with two sticks - you can hear the difference on beat and almost-on-beat very easily. And if you are trying to use vocal effects and hear your own voice delayed - that just messes with your brain. Read this article for more background on how latency affects musicians and what number are acceptable: https://www.churchproduction.com/education/latency-and-its-affect-on-performers/ https://www.churchproduction.com/education/latency-and-its-a... As for the side note - I played with my friend's iPhone, and decided to stay away from that device :) I still have an old iPod Touch which runs a looper just fine.
izacus 8y ago
I'd say it's unlikely, mostly because you'll still be limited by quality of audio drivers on actual devices. And most OEMs don't really care, making the actual addressable market for audio apps way smaller.
- romwell 8y ago
  Having seen the Windows side of it, I am not worried to much about the drivers - even Realtek built-in soundcards can pull off decent latency. Touch screens, on the other hand, are a problem -- they add input latency if you want to use the screen as an instrument/controller, and that's what a lot of music apps do (virtual keyboards/drum pads/etc). Last time I really tried those, every single device was atrocious in that respect (both iDevices and Android)[1] -- keep in mind that total latency from touch to sound should be under 10 ms to be really acceptable. And things haven't been getting better until recently. Short of music equipment, the trend for everything has been to get more sluggish[2] Razer Phone and iPhone X might change that[3] if others follow suit, so I'm hopeful (both feature 1/120sec touch latency, which is OK). [1]https://www.imore.com/iphone-5-touchscreen-latency-measured-found-be-25-times-faster-closest-android-device https://www.imore.com/iphone-5-touchscreen-latency-measured-... [2]https://danluu.com/input-lag/ https://danluu.com/input-lag/ [3]https://www.macworld.com/article/3235709/iphone-ipad/iphone-x-samples-touch-input-at-120hz-for-faster-smoother-response.html https://www.macworld.com/article/3235709/iphone-ipad/iphone-...

telesilla 8y ago

Have you tried Ableton's Link technology on Apple? I know a few DJs who find this solution works well as it will sync with their desktop DAW.

romwell 8y ago
I haven't - it seems to be an orthogonal technology to what is being discussed here.

puzzle 8y ago

Raph Levien worked for years on improving Android audio latency. I had a great chat with him a long ago about emulating the DX7, APIs and so on. I thought they already managed to get numbers to reasonable levels (after adding tighter requirements to the Android certification suite, among others) and even gave a talk at I/O. I'm surprised he's not involved in this, but then this is C++; he's been really into Rust for a while and perhaps back to working on typography alone — assuming he's still at Google, on the Android team.

raphlinus 8y ago
Wrong on both counts. However, I'm very much back in the audio synthesis game, and will give a talk at next month's SF Rust Meetup on the topic.
- 90minuteAPI 8y ago
  Looking forward to it! It has always seemed to me like such a great application of the language, having done a fair amount of low-latency A/V programming in the C[++] realm.
- wwweston 8y ago
  Would love to hear you're planning to put up video and/or slides -- that way I don't have to drive up from Los Angeles. Or get around the waitlist of 30 people for a full event. :)
  - raphlinus 8y ago
    Yes to both, and also plan to write blogs about the content, and documentation for the library as it matures. I'm gratified to see the interest!
- zengid 8y ago
  Looking forward to seeing your results with making rust work on audio and a cross plat gui. I'm a rust noob but willing to try and help if possible since I want to make audio apps with a sane language like rust.
pjmlp 8y ago
Raph Levien has left Google. https://raphlinus.github.io/personal/2018/08/28/a-new-adventure.html https://raphlinus.github.io/personal/2018/08/28/a-new-advent...

Ycros 8y ago

I originally bought an iPad just for music stuff, but a lot of the time I'm hooking it up to an external audio interface for better quality IO and midi. I think that iOS' support for USB Audio and USB Midi devices is also a large part of what helped it build an ecosystem of decent music making apps. I agree that not having a headphone jack combined with the unacceptable latency of bluetooth makes it unusable for on-the-go music making. As for pricing, I think that won't change on Android. Music making is a niche market, and these apps are not cheap to develop.

giancarlostoro 8y ago
> I think that iOS' support for USB Audio and USB Midi devices is also a large part of what helped it build an ecosystem of decent music making apps. I hate to go there but I think the other factor is standardized hardware. You're guaranteed certain hardware setups for iOS devices, for Android it's anybody's guess really whether a phone can support some features or not. It would be nice if all Android phones had USB C, of course it would of been nicer if USB C had better regulation since now all USB C interfaces are like... Ah well a guy can dream can't he.

mrpippy 8y ago

Google is only interested in tablets that run ChromeOS, and just announced one without a headphone jack. Not sure if the low-latency audio is making it to the CrOS/Android environment either.

lathiat 8y ago

I'm not sure how they are doing it, but if you enable "Live Listen" mode with AirPods (basically turns the iphone into a microphone and the AirPods into a hearing aid) in iOS12 the latency is almost imperceptible. https://www.engadget.com/2018/06/05/live-listen-ios-12-apple-airpods/ https://www.engadget.com/2018/06/05/live-listen-ios-12-apple... When using this mode to listen to my TV, I can just tell that there is a delay between the real sound and those from the AirPods but it's not long enough a delay that I can't understand the speech or really bothers me. If anyone has technical info I'd love to know. As I have also witnessed that in normal application you easily have 1-2 seconds of latency. Obviously videos synchronize with it but it's not ideal for games etc. I do wonder if it's a matter of some settings the apps need to potentially set or some such. If you think about it calls are also lower latency than this .. though they use a different BT audio profile (HFP/HSP) that is mono instead of the A2DP Stereo Protocol. Last of all I was surprised Apple didn't come up with some custom protocol mode for AirPods that allows Stereo+Mic. Gaming consoles do this on 2.4GHz even with multiple controllers so it seems possible in theory (though perhaps maybe not alongside 2.4GHz WiFi? not sure). Would love more insight on all the above. EDIT: Side note to the OP, just use a lightning adapter :-)

romwell 8y ago
>When using this mode to listen to my TV, I can just tell that there is a delay... That absolutely destroys it for music apps. A decent latency for music apps is under 10ms. You don't hear it, you feel it when you press a key and you don't hear the sound immediately. It prevents you from playing fast, even if you kind of adjust to it. Your brain is very sensitive to timing differences. Hit a drum with two sticks - you can hear the difference on beat and almost-on-beat very easily. And if you are trying to use vocal effects and hear your own voice delayed - that just messes with your brain. Read this article for more background on how latency affects musicians and what number are acceptable: https://www.churchproduction.com/education/latency-and-its-affect-on-performers/ https://www.churchproduction.com/education/latency-and-its-a... As for the side note - I played with my friend's iPhone, and decided to stay away from that device :) I still have an old iPod Touch which runs a looper just fine.

izacus 8y ago

I'd say it's unlikely, mostly because you'll still be limited by quality of audio drivers on actual devices. And most OEMs don't really care, making the actual addressable market for audio apps way smaller.

romwell 8y ago
Having seen the Windows side of it, I am not worried to much about the drivers - even Realtek built-in soundcards can pull off decent latency. Touch screens, on the other hand, are a problem -- they add input latency if you want to use the screen as an instrument/controller, and that's what a lot of music apps do (virtual keyboards/drum pads/etc). Last time I really tried those, every single device was atrocious in that respect (both iDevices and Android)[1] -- keep in mind that total latency from touch to sound should be under 10 ms to be really acceptable. And things haven't been getting better until recently. Short of music equipment, the trend for everything has been to get more sluggish[2] Razer Phone and iPhone X might change that[3] if others follow suit, so I'm hopeful (both feature 1/120sec touch latency, which is OK). [1]https://www.imore.com/iphone-5-touchscreen-latency-measured-found-be-25-times-faster-closest-android-device https://www.imore.com/iphone-5-touchscreen-latency-measured-... [2]https://danluu.com/input-lag/ https://danluu.com/input-lag/ [3]https://www.macworld.com/article/3235709/iphone-ipad/iphone-x-samples-touch-input-at-120hz-for-faster-smoother-response.html https://www.macworld.com/article/3235709/iphone-ipad/iphone-...