" THE   ZERO   GUIDE "

Now available: the always titillating "FRETBUZZ" software! **NEW**

LOW LATENCY AUDIO HARDWARE

Alright, the hardest part is over. This chapter, and the others following, briefly discuss the final considerations worthy of considering before taking your plastic axe to the stage. :)

Low latency audio hardware is something in which you may need to invest. If you have a Mac, I think your core audio hardware may be fast enough to rock. On the other hand, standard PC audio hardware usually leaves more to be desired, specifically when looking at audio output latency. It's a good thing that USB audio interfaces are not too expensive these days.

As illustrated in the beginning of this guide, we use the Tascam US-144 audio interface. It is fine for what we need, which is to output 2 channels of audio with as low a latency as possible. The L channel outputs the bass "guitar" sounds, and the R channel spits out the lead "guitar" sounds. Then we take the L channel output and pipe it into our bass amp, and vice versa, the R channel goes to our guitar rig. More on that in chapter 8.

This particular audio device, along with most other USB driven devices, performs optimally via USB 2.0. This is why we had to get a PCMCIA USB 2.0 card, because our laptop only had USB 1.0 integrated into the motherboard. Newer computers may come standard with USB 2.0, thus you may not need to purchase a USB 2.0 card. If you have a Mac and want more than your core audio hardware can provide, then you may choose to use a Firewire audio interface - it also is plenty fast for low latency (live audio) applications. Some PC owners may have a firewire port, too, and of course you can use it for low latency hardware for sure.

NEXT CHAPTER : REAL-TIME PERFORMANCE OPTIMIZATION