tonex pedal latency

[newholland]

hey all-

i dont own this thing, and am not really a modeling guy at all- but i can absolutely see the value of it having used amplitube a bunch for demoing stuff over the years.

my main concern isnt that it will sound bad (though ive struggled with amplitube sounding too dark- but thats beside my point here)- its more that id hit latency live. i can live with that for demos, but not live- and especially not if im looking at 3-5 ms. it just feels shitty.

my question is how far can i dial it back with JUST an amp model running? i dont use fx, i dont use "FRFR" cabs, my rigs are SUPER direct guitar amps.. itd just be the amp model into.. an amp. has it developed to the point where i can expect sub 1ms of lag that way straight off the three button pedal?

AND... do they do well with the volume knob on the guitar?

im a little backwards and troglodyte- so sorry for the 'does it feel like an amp' questions, but i genuinely havent met the newer gen, and its tough to say a 400 dollar modeler doesnt sound at least attractive as a killer flexible backup box and demo machine if it does better than old amplitube and its lagginess.

thanks yallz.

 

[laxu]

What audio interface and buffer sizes are you using with Amplitube atm?

 

[newholland]

What audio interface and buffer sizes are you using with Amplitube atm?

im not sure what buffer i was using- but i believe id dialed down to 64 on an i5 with 24gigs of ram on a focusrite pro 40.

 

[laxu]

im not sure what buffer i was using- but i believe id dialed down to 64 on an i5 with 24gigs of ram on a focusrite pro 40.

Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 at 64 buffer size would have about 6ms latency according to Dawbench results. It's not a particularly great performer in latency it seems.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Tonex pedal seems to have about 3ms latency so that would already be a lot better, and is firmly in "eh, don't care" territory IMO, unless you are pairing it with other latency inducing digital pedals or a wireless system.

 

[newholland]

Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 at 64 buffer size would have about 6ms latency according to Dawbench results. It's not a particularly great performer in latency it seems.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Tonex pedal seems to have about 3ms latency so that would already be a lot better, and is firmly in "eh, don't care" territory IMO, unless you are pairing it with other latency inducing digital pedals or a wireless system.

ah! yeah, you definitely feel it :lol:

nah- my use case would end up being pretty basic, and i dont really use any pedals 99% of the time. mebbe verb mebbe a boost- but i usually set max gain, and use my volume knob for everything else. ive just struggled to find a decent dirt pedal thats flexible enough into a clean amp so i can just go into the loop-- some options could get me over the hump. that tonex has a compressor could help me keep some feel if i used my big fender ss amp too.

well- thats good to know, for sure- thank you!

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

I’m not gonna say that you’re crazy if you think you can feel 3-5 ms of latency, but I will say:

(1) objectively, there are plenty of controlled, scientific studies that show that someone able to sense 3-5ms of audio latency is an extreme outlier, and

(2) anecdotally, I found this conversation with Cory Wong just after the 29 minute mark about his use of a wireless into a digital modeler with two loops active pretty informative:

 

[laxu]

I’m not gonna say that you’re crazy if you think you can feel 3-5 ms of latency, but I will say:

(1) objectively, there are plenty of controlled, scientific studies that show that someone able to sense 3-5ms of audio latency is an extreme outlier, and

I think you can tell a difference - if you have a direct lower latency comparison to use.

I can tell going direct to my BluGuitar (no latency) vs adding e.g the Hotone Ampero 2 Stomp (3-6ms depending on preset and if its fx loop is used).

I can notice if I add my Boss WL-20L wireless (2.4ms) to an audio interface (~5ms), but it never bothered me if I plug it into e.g the Axe-Fx 3 (2.2ms) so there's thresholds for "too much" too.

It's always a "do I care when I get all this other stuff in return?" thing, and you can adapt your playing to it as well.

For me, anything under 5-6ms is honestly fine.

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

I think you can tell a difference - if you have a direct lower latency comparison to use.

I can tell going direct to my BluGuitar (no latency) vs adding e.g the Hotone Ampero 2 Stomp (3-6ms depending on preset and if its fx loop is used).

I can notice if I add my Boss WL-20L wireless (2.4ms) to an audio interface (~5ms), but it never bothered me if I plug it into e.g the Axe-Fx 3 (2.2ms) so there's thresholds for "too much" too.

It's always a "do I care when I get all this other stuff in return?" thing, and you can adapt your playing to it as well.

For me, anything under 5-6ms is honestly fine.

Again, I am not going to tell someone what they can or can’t hear/feel. Just note that the studies were performed showing ability to sense sub-10ms latency is an extreme outlier were performed by legit scientists that know how to control, not random YouTubers.

 

[TheBigDipper]

The speed of sound is 343 metres/sec (I just Googled). So my maths say a 3ms delay is what you'd experience if your ear was just 1.029 metres from the speaker.

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

The speed of sound is 343 metres/sec (I just Googled). So my maths say a 3ms delay is what you'd experience if your ear was just 1.029 metres from the speaker. Make sure you play small stages and stay close if you don't want too much latency, folks…

This isn’t terribly relevant. As you move a speaker away, other things change that signal to your brain “oh, I’m further from the speaker.” Which is a different, possibly more tolerable, experience than the sound coming from the same source but delayed.

That said: https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.... have shown that,-time human-computer systems.

 

[TheBigDipper]

This isn’t terribly relevant. As you move a speaker away, other things change that signal to your brain “oh, I’m further from the speaker.” Which is a different, possibly more tolerable, experience than the sound coming from the same source but delayed.

That said: https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3678299.3678331#:~:text=Previous studies have shown that,-time human-computer systems.

Ah, you quoted my initial, unedited post. It felt a bit snarky, so I edited out the unnecessary "snark". Nice link. Thanks.

 

[Richard_G]

I’m not bothered by the latency when using my Tonex One. But latency can obviously stack up and might be a problem if you have a lot of digital pedals etc on a pedal board.

 

[newholland]

I’m not gonna say that you’re crazy if you think you can feel 3-5 ms of latency, but I will say:

(1) objectively, there are plenty of controlled, scientific studies that show that someone able to sense 3-5ms of audio latency is an extreme outlier, and

(2) anecdotally, I found this conversation with Cory Wong just after the 29 minute mark about his use of a wireless into a digital modeler with two loops active pretty informative:

oh man, well that could be, but ive played acoustic instruments my whole life. i definitely get aggravated by the lag. im glad to put up with it for demos.. but i dont want to if im ensemble playing cause regular amps provide me with none

its not like i NEED flexibility or fx or anything else this tech offers other than portability and a decent simulacra. but timing being weird to the level of old amplitube isnt wanted. 6ms feels like a lot and weird to me for sure.

 

[newholland]

The speed of sound is 343 metres/sec (I just Googled). So my maths say a 3ms delay is what you'd experience if your ear was just 1.029 metres from the speaker.

no i get that. but my daw was returning twice that, and i suspect its not really the same dynamic. 3ms total would be a lot closer, id think, but even stiĺl. some folks dont much care either way, im sure, but if youre used to instantaneous response of an amp- delay is a little weird. im not speaking theoretically- ive actually experienced it

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

oh man, well that could be, but ive played acoustic instruments my whole life. i definitely get aggravated by the lag. im glad to put up with it for demos.. but i dont want to if im ensemble playing cause regular amps provide me with none

its not like i NEED flexibility or fx or anything else this tech offers other than portability and a decent simulacra. but timing being weird to the level of old amplitube isnt wanted. 6ms feels like a lot and weird to me for sure.

Comparing a DAW to a pedal is absolute apples to cotton. Also, unless you actually measured the round trip latency in the computer, I wouldn’t trust the number the computer was reporting. I don’t know what the latency of the Tonex One is but I’d be shocked if it were over 3.5ms.

Also, the scientific studies include trained musicians that have played acoustic instruments their whole lives…and Cory Wong attributes his sense of time to his years playing acoustic drums.

 

[newholland]

Comparing a DAW to a pedal is absolute apples to cotton. Also, unless you actually measured the round trip latency in the computer, I wouldn’t trust the number the computer was reporting. I don’t know what the latency of the Tonex One is but I’d be shocked if it were over 3.5ms.

Also, the scientific studies include trained musicians that have played acoustic instruments their whole lives…and Cory Wong attributes his sense of time to his years playing acoustic drums.

oh i know what it reported, and it was saying 3, and laxu was saying the interface is capable of more like 6 i havent got a clue what it is in actuality, it just feels weird TO ME, regardless. ultimately, if i dont like it, the numbers and studies are irrelevant. im not saying i dont hear you, and i still appreciate the info- im just saying my particular neural wiring says no to too much of it whatever that amounts to. if its weird, its weird, but i can only report my experience.

meantime though- if the new device is way less than the 6- id be inclined to give it a whip just to try it out. if i see one, im definitely gonna!

 

[BenIfin]

Ironically .. Leo Gibson on Y/T has shown that the on its release, the Tonex One baby brother pedal actually had less total latency than its big brother pedal - from memory we are talking in the ~1.5ms <-> ~2.5ms range

 

[EOengineer]

I use Helix and my other guitarist uses an HXFX & Tonex rig direct. We both go into Logic through a Presonus Quantum interface and out to a wired Aviom headphone system. I’ve really had to work to keep our latency in check because our drummer is also playing an Ekit/SD3 rig through it. You really feel the latency with the drums.

The Presonus was a godsend. At 48kHz we’re getting sub 2s RTL. Prior to that we were pushing 10-14ms RTL with the HXFX/Tonex rig in the path.

I’m with others here who let it go once things are sub 5-6ms. I’ll take lower if I can get it, but generally that works as a solid guideline.

I’m fairly confident the Tonex pedal’s own internal latency is under 3ms.