I took some time and made some tests, including the one you describe here, so that we have a baseline for audio and MIDI latency, against which we can compare any updates.
Setup
I created a very simple MIDI setup:
Cirklon --> Thru Box --> TV
|
+----> ST
For tests 1 and 4 ST and TV were panned hard left and hard right, for tests 2 and 3 ST ran through TV’s inputs and sounds were panned inside TV. For test 5 one channel of ST was routed to the mixer, and the other channel was routed through TV.
Tests
Differences to previous test in test setup are highlighted in italics
Test 1:
- Setup:
- Cirklon sends MIDI clock
- ST and TV use internal sequencer to play a sound every 4 steps.
- TV and ST are connected to mixer
- Result: TV is 21ms late.
Test 2:
- Setup:
- Cirklon sends MIDI clock
- ST and TV use internal sequencer to play a sound every 4 steps.
- ST out is routed to Audio In on TV
- Audio in is routed into track 2 on TV (with 2 insert fx)
- Result: ST is ~1ms late
Test 3
- Setup:
- Cirklon sends MIDI clock
- ST and TV use internal sequencer to play a sound every 4 steps.
- ST out is routed to Audio In on TV
- Audio in is routed into track 2 on TV (with 2 insert fx)
- Track 2 is routed to Bus 1 (again with 2 insert fx)
- Result: ST is ~1ms late
Test 4
- Setup:
- Cirklon sends MIDI notes to TV and ST
- TV and ST are connected to mixer
- Result: TV is 23ms late
Test 5
- Setup:
- Cirklon sends MIDI notes to ST
- TV and ST are connected to mixer
- ST out is routed to Audio In on TV
- Audio in is routed into track 2 on TV (with 2 insert fx) -
- Result: TV is 23ms late
Conclusions
- it appears TV has 20ms latency for both MIDI and external audio
- insert effects / routing through buses does not appear to introduce additional latency to external audio