I am using a Micron_M600_MTFDDAK1T0MBF SSD. The transfer speed is Up to 560 MB/s . I still get the message that my disc isn’t fast enough for Ardour. How fast does my disc need to be for Ardour? I am not complaining just asking. I have been able to record everything else I have tried except this current project.
It isn’t quite so simple. That message happens when ardour isn’t able to write data fast enough, but that can come from the disk or the system confit or in some cases if cpu is maxed out that can affect the ability to write data to disk as well.
It may have been something else other than my ssd. The composition I was working on had 4 tracks of arpeggios and a piano track. I was attempting to record a Yoshimi arppregio track when I received the message. I have just purchased this computer specifically for recording. It has a core I7 processor and 32gb of ram as well as a 1tb ssd. I thought it was bullet proof but not so. I erased the project and tried to duplicate the problem and could not. I had probably created the perfect storm to get the error message. My fears were that my new ssd was not fast enough. But what you say makes more sense. The project was processor intense and I probably won’t get the message again. I guess we can call this problem solved for now. Hopefully I won’t get it again. Thanks to all that offered help.
If you are having problems with processor usage the first step is try increasing the buffer size. That will increase latency, so you can’t necessarily increase to an arbitrarily large value for all situations. When thinking about what latency values are acceptable it may be useful to think about analogies to acoustic instruments. A piano for example has a range of latencies from string to player’s ear that ranges from around 2ms in the middle register to 3ms or 4ms for the lowest and highest registers.
Playing electric guitar standing beside a combo amp on the floor would be around 4ms minimum, and if you are standing about 7 feet/2m in front of a combo amp on the floor that would be at least 8ms latency from the amp to your ears.
So trying to achieve low single digit millisecond latencies is not really needed. How low you do need may depend on whether you are trying to use your computer as a synthesizer while you play a keyboard or percussion controller in real time, and whether you are having Ardour manage audio monitoring.
Thanks for the advise. If I encounter the problem again I’ll check my buffer size. Thanks also for the lesson on latency. My only concern with latency is that I don’t want my tracks to be out of time with each other. I record everything my self. the keyboard parts the guitar parts and the vocal parts. If I can’t detect problems with the finished song, I’m good with that.
Ardour is pretty much state of the art in that regards, but you do have to configure your specific hardware (measure the latency so Ardour has the correct settings to allow compensation).
I think the manual should explain that, but I need to check that section. Some parts of the manual may be slightly out of date, but the software walks you through what you need to do if you select latency measurement from the audio setup window.
The short version is you connect a cable from your audio device output to audio device input, run the measurement to get the compensation values, then put your cables back to your usual connections.
Manual section links:
Latency considerations
Latency compensation
In the second link the section titled “Calibrating JACK Latency” is a little out of date. The description of launching jack_delay is not relevant when using the ALSA backend instead of JACK, and that measurement can be made directly from the Ardour audio engine setup window now, rather than relying on an external tool.
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