Wish: More Pedals with Digital Audio I/O

[grafter.puzzler]

With the increasing popularity of digital pedals for live music production, the issue of latency is always a concern.

While many products today offer incredibly low latency that's virtually imperceptible, there is still the issue of chaining multiple digital products in signal path and compounding latency.

The Fractal VP4 is a new pedal product that is meant to integrate with both analog and digital gear as it offers not only analog audio I/O but digital via SPDIF. This avoids redundant A/D and D/A conversations and keeps latency to a minimum.

I think more products in the guitar pedal space should follow Fractal's lead here. For example, imagine a digital wireless unit with digital audio out. Assuming the product was high enough quality, that could be the first only place where you'd need A/D conversion and run digital out into all your other gear with digital I/O.

 

[EOengineer]

Agreed - it sucks to pay that latency tax.

 

[laxu]

The AD/DA conversion is not a major source of latency though. There's just pedals on the market with a bit shit latency for what they are.

For digital I/O you might need sample rate conversion or pedal makers agreeing on a standard sample rate. Which they won't.

 

[AFKAEjay(retired)]

In my mind: overcoming the challenge of syncing digital clocks may be a too big of a hurdle to overcome looking at the benifits digital connectivity brings.

 

[ragingplatypi]

I’d rather pay less money because latency has never been a thing I actually perceived post-2019.