Latency

In order to reduce latency (the time between pressing the key and hearing the sound), it’s best to keep your hardware buffer size as low as possible.

This is especially true of Patches with sharp transients (attacks), such as piano or other percussive sounds, where precise rhythm is required. Sounds with slower attacks, such as pads, strings, or voices, are more forgiving and you’ll be able to get away with higher buffer sizes.

The minimum buffer settings you can use (without causing audio glitches) can depend on a number of factors. It can be affected by the number of sounds you have loaded and if any of those sounds place a heavy load on your CPU.

If you’re using sounds that require a lot of memory or CPU power (such as some of the Keyscape pianos or sounds with lots of FX), you might need to find a balance between optimizing the sound for live use and increasing the buffer size to avoid glitches.

NOTE: In some programs, such as MainStage, the total resulting latency is a combination of I/O Buffer Size and the program’s Driver Latency Settings.