4 ms·
Then again, mechanical instruments can have quite a bit of latency themselves, for instance: It takes a while for the reed in a harmonica to settle into a speci
by jascii 7y ago
Then again, mechanical instruments can have quite a bit of latency themselves, for instance: It takes a while for the reed in a harmonica to settle into a specific vibration when activated, especially when bending notes. Same for a string in a bowed string instrument.
I find it interesting to see that that mechanical latency
is something that a good musician learns to use and becomes part of an instruments "character" and "expressiveness" while digital latency is almost universally considered a bad thing.
- anbop 7y agooof, not comparable at all. The increased mechanical latency from a cello, compared to a violin, is an incredible source of tonal and musical complexity. First of all, the latency can be felt by the musician, so I don't lose control of the feedback loop. Second, the latency isn't a hard start/stop, but you can feel and hear the string first displacing under the bow and then starting to move. There is zero latency in terms of the physical universe... there is just some more latency between when you start an action and when the note reaches its full steady state. The comparison is like the difference between driving a truck and a car compared to driving a car with a 500ms delay on its inputs.
- munificent 7y agoThat's not latency, though. There is zero delay between the musician initiating an action and sound happening. What you're talking about is the transients or attack at the beginning of a note and those are a profoundly important part of the sound.