4 ms·

This data [0] doesn't have the latest models, and it's meassuring latency internaly, not "touch-to-sound". The ones they tested average around 7-8ms. I've heard

by kall 6y ago

This data [0] doesn't have the latest models, and it's meassuring latency internaly, not "touch-to-sound". The ones they tested average around 7-8ms. I've heard of <10ms as the benchmark for "instant" in audio. Edit: I've been thinking about this and a touch-to-tone latency below 10ms seems imposible, even with the 120hz digitizer on newer iPhones. I would be very interested in seeing some experimental data as well. [0] https://juce.com/discover/stories/Mobile%20performance%20index%20 https://juce.com/discover/stories/Mobile%20performance%20ind...

thomasahle 6y ago
The best I could find was https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/71301 https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/71301 which suggests a 32ms touch latency. I think that might include some processing, but it doesn't seem much better than the 20ms latency in Android mentioned in the article. The audio processing latency seems to be single digit on both systems. In any case, I don't think these differences are big enough to argue that "Android can't be used for instruments".
- cma 6y ago
  There are 120hz ipads, so wouldn't that drop to 16ms? A physical piano with a 1.2" hammer blow distance played at soft velocity (~2.2mph), assuming distance of closest resonating surface to ear is half meter, would have around 35ms latency.
- kall 6y ago
  Yeah, I think the numbers in the article should be good enough for a bunch of music use cases, but remember it used to be like half a second which is obviously unworkable. Well financed developers like ROLI already have instruments on android. I think the incredible instruments available on iOS are also there because the App Store promise actually kind of works for them. They write a great application, upload it to server and people buy it for more than 2.99$, upfront. And unlike VSTs, no one even pirates it. The general idea/stereotype is that no one wants that on android. An open source port of VCV Rack would be feasable and wonderful though. That's the only free instrument I have installed on my music iPad. Edit: nevermind, that was not free either.
  - de6u99er 6y ago
    Totally agree. We should not forget that our brain is great at adjusting to latency. In the old days, when I was excessively playing Quake 3 Team Arena it took me just a couple of minutes to adjust to network latency depending on the server I was connected to. Professional musicians do this constantly and are much better at that.
    - lloeki 6y ago
      What. Our brain is absolutely terrible at adjusting for latency. It can somewhat compensate, but only to an extent, and at severe cost. There’s this video around that puts people in a VR helmet playing A/V with a delay, even the lowest setting completely destroys any form of efficiency. Anything below 60Hz in VR has a significantly increased chance of giving motion sickness due to latency. Playing Super Mario Bros in an emulator is strangely subtly harder than on the real NES hardware, just because of a slight lag added (can’t recal on NES but on SNES buttons literally bit-flip the RAM, hard to beat that). You can train all you want on an emulator, when you get back to the real thing it’s obvious it was just so crippling. Try Guitar Hero / Rock Band with various audio / video latency settings. 10ms is obviously impactful, anything higher borderlines on unplayable, and even 5ms has a subtle impact increasing missing notes. As for pro musicians, they absolutely loathe latency. This is why bassists (tempo) / drummers (rhythm) / conductors (tempo) exist: they serve as a single source of truth to sync on. In fact, we’re so sensitive to latency that the slightest deviation is unbearable, hence why following them put you back in sync. Same for effect pedals, amps, feedbacks... any latency is destroying. Try playing on Zoom, it’s absolutely impossible (unless you assume latency is fixed, which it is not, and play in a tempo matching latency exactly, and follow the lead but time-warp your play by one beat, which I imagine is possible as a sort of canon but absolutely horrendous) unless you completely ignore the other part and find a common time source to sync upon. Now you mention Quake 3, and it might just be you were severely misled by several critical innovations that game introduced, like network prediction and frame interpolation, negating most of the practical effects of latency. https://www.jfedor.org/quake3/ https://www.jfedor.org/quake3/
      - indymike 6y ago
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
bentpins 6y ago
Xiaomi has hit 480hz touch sampling with the Mi 11. It looks possible in hardware and in software, someone just has to manage to perfect both in the same phone

by kall 6y ago

thomasahle 6y ago

The best I could find was https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/71301 https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/71301 which suggests a 32ms touch latency. I think that might include some processing, but it doesn't seem much better than the 20ms latency in Android mentioned in the article. The audio processing latency seems to be single digit on both systems. In any case, I don't think these differences are big enough to argue that "Android can't be used for instruments".

cma 6y ago
There are 120hz ipads, so wouldn't that drop to 16ms? A physical piano with a 1.2" hammer blow distance played at soft velocity (~2.2mph), assuming distance of closest resonating surface to ear is half meter, would have around 35ms latency.
kall 6y ago
Yeah, I think the numbers in the article should be good enough for a bunch of music use cases, but remember it used to be like half a second which is obviously unworkable. Well financed developers like ROLI already have instruments on android. I think the incredible instruments available on iOS are also there because the App Store promise actually kind of works for them. They write a great application, upload it to server and people buy it for more than 2.99$, upfront. And unlike VSTs, no one even pirates it. The general idea/stereotype is that no one wants that on android. An open source port of VCV Rack would be feasable and wonderful though. That's the only free instrument I have installed on my music iPad. Edit: nevermind, that was not free either.
- de6u99er 6y ago
  Totally agree. We should not forget that our brain is great at adjusting to latency. In the old days, when I was excessively playing Quake 3 Team Arena it took me just a couple of minutes to adjust to network latency depending on the server I was connected to. Professional musicians do this constantly and are much better at that.
  - lloeki 6y ago
    What. Our brain is absolutely terrible at adjusting for latency. It can somewhat compensate, but only to an extent, and at severe cost. There’s this video around that puts people in a VR helmet playing A/V with a delay, even the lowest setting completely destroys any form of efficiency. Anything below 60Hz in VR has a significantly increased chance of giving motion sickness due to latency. Playing Super Mario Bros in an emulator is strangely subtly harder than on the real NES hardware, just because of a slight lag added (can’t recal on NES but on SNES buttons literally bit-flip the RAM, hard to beat that). You can train all you want on an emulator, when you get back to the real thing it’s obvious it was just so crippling. Try Guitar Hero / Rock Band with various audio / video latency settings. 10ms is obviously impactful, anything higher borderlines on unplayable, and even 5ms has a subtle impact increasing missing notes. As for pro musicians, they absolutely loathe latency. This is why bassists (tempo) / drummers (rhythm) / conductors (tempo) exist: they serve as a single source of truth to sync on. In fact, we’re so sensitive to latency that the slightest deviation is unbearable, hence why following them put you back in sync. Same for effect pedals, amps, feedbacks... any latency is destroying. Try playing on Zoom, it’s absolutely impossible (unless you assume latency is fixed, which it is not, and play in a tempo matching latency exactly, and follow the lead but time-warp your play by one beat, which I imagine is possible as a sort of canon but absolutely horrendous) unless you completely ignore the other part and find a common time source to sync upon. Now you mention Quake 3, and it might just be you were severely misled by several critical innovations that game introduced, like network prediction and frame interpolation, negating most of the practical effects of latency. https://www.jfedor.org/quake3/ https://www.jfedor.org/quake3/
    - indymike 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

bentpins 6y ago

Xiaomi has hit 480hz touch sampling with the Mi 11. It looks possible in hardware and in software, someone just has to manage to perfect both in the same phone