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Does anyone use computer based bass plugins live?

micahwc

micahwc

May 14, 2012
4,099
16,579
Somewhere cold
#1
Greetings,

I just discovered Aurora DSP's gorilla bass plugin. I've been having a blast with it. I'm using it with a Mac mini and routing it through my Helix LT. I was wondering if anyone uses bass plugins for live music? I haven't noticed any latency yet, and because I'm using it with a helix if anything goes wrong on the computer side of things I can just click to go to a different Helix preset. Do you have any recommendations for other plugins to look into?

Thanks in advance.
 
#7
I don't, but know a few folks that do for more elaborate patches and live looping.

Regarding latency: It's only an issue if it's an issue. You can't avoid latency if your signal is going through an AD and a DA stage despite some manufacturers' marketing that suggests "no latency" or other silly claims. The reality is that you can only perceive latency once it's of sufficient quantity. There are papers I've read in the past that suggest the threshold for perception of audible latency by humans is around 8ms, but it varies from person to person. As your DSP demands increase, so too will your latency. Convolution is a big killer for this. Be careful with the amount of processing you're using, use hardware capable of the task at hand, and listen carefully.
 
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#8
So for the time being I'm using one program and using helix effects placed after it in the chain. Thus far no latency. But the more stuff I add on the computer the more latency I'll introduce. Thus, I need to keep the computer stuff to a minimum but otherwise its doable in a live situation?
 
#9
micguy said:
The challenge with anything computer based is the latency issue, which, in most live scenarios, would be a non-starter.
Click to expand...
That’s far less the case than it was a few years ago. With a reasonably powerful computer - I use high-end Windows laptops, sometimes marketed as “gaming” laptops and contemporary audio/MIDI interfaces from Zoom and Focusrite, and I get a latency low enough to be just fine in a live situation. And I’m doing pretty crazy heavyweight processing on the rig, particularly when I use combo MIDI/audio from my guitar to drive not just effects, but a hellish chorus of VST synths. The historical rule of thumb is that less the 10ms latency isn’t noticeable, but it takes 20-30ms for sound to get across a large stage. Even a 16ms nominal latency is manageable in performance.

/K.
 
#10
I used to play with Guitar Rig ages ago. I don't know about the latest version, but I never encountered much lag/latency with GR4 and 5. The only issues, as always, is when I used a pitch shifter. Of course I never used many effects. Amp, Leslie sim and a bit of EQ or filter. I have played with the drives, but decided I'm not a fan of drives on a bass period and that never changed. But it worked well.
 
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#12
Sid Fang said:
That’s far less the case than it was a few years ago. With a reasonably powerful computer - I use high-end Windows laptops, sometimes marketed as “gaming” laptops and contemporary audio/MIDI interfaces from Zoom and Focusrite, and I get a latency low enough to be just fine in a live situation. And I’m doing pretty crazy heavyweight processing on the rig, particularly when I use combo MIDI/audio from my guitar to drive not just effects, but a hellish chorus of VST synths. The historical rule of thumb is that less the 10ms latency isn’t noticeable, but it takes 20-30ms for sound to get across a large stage. Even a 16ms nominal latency is manageable in performance.

/K.
Click to expand...
Different folks have different tolerances. I've very used to playing through IEM's, where things are immediate (no delay from the speaker to your ear). When we had a FOH setup that had 6 msec of latency, it drove me crazy trying to compensate.
 
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#14
I have a UAD Apollo X4 and use plug-ins. This rig gets down to 1.5- 2 ms total, actual latency (the reason I went with this platform). Have gigged mixing the entire band in the UAD virtual environment by taking 8 channels via light pipe and using the 4 analog in the x4 (12 channels, pretty minimal). We run Ableton for additional virtual instruments and hosting time based, wet only effects that require controllers (using the same interface but adding the DAW introduces additional latency). Computer is an M2 14" Mac laptop, previously an intel i7 Mac quad core. I have toured with this rig and it is rock solid.
 

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