Studiologic MKII 73 lag/latency with GP5 Essentials

Gig Performer on Windows
1

Hi guys,

I’m running a Surface Pro 8, i5-1145G7 @ 2.60GHz (2.61 GHz) with 16gb ram on Windows 11. With GP5 Essentials with the internal audio interface of a Studiologic SL73 MKII. The main VSTs that I’m using are SGX2, EP-1 from Korg Collection 6 and Pianoverse, BX-3 from IK Multimedia

I’m a jazz pianist, so need a very responsive setup. Running these VSTs in ‘standalone’ format I get a very playable response of somewhere around < 4ms @ 192khz. So no issues there. I’ve also tested with Cantabile, Bigwg and Reaper as VST hosts, and same - no issues with playability.

I like the idea of creating a custom touch control surface out of GP and the Surface Pro - hence the reason for the GP purchase as I haven’t been able to find any other software that features this on Windows.

When I use GP5 Essentials with this setup (Studiologic via USBC direct to the Surface), I can run at the same settings but I’m getting a noticeable ‘lag’ in the performance which feels like latency has been introduced. I don’t know if I’m using the correct terminology here, just trying to describe the situation!

I proceeded to test GP with some of my other equipment. Yamaha CP88 (internal audio interface), then the Studiologic but instead using a Arturia Minifuse instead of the built in interface. With all these setups I get perfect performance out of GP.

I noticed that the CP88 and Minifuse both use ASIO drivers in all software except for the Studiologic internal interface which uses ‘WASAPI’ drivers. Except for in GP - the selectable driver for the Studiologic in GP is ‘Windows Audio’.

So, this leads me to believe that the issue comes down to the Studiologic not having ASIO drivers or the WASAPI vs Windows Audio. The weird thing is that in other software this isn’t an issue the WASAPI drivers work without issue, it is only GP where there is an issue.

Any ideas???

2

That is correct.
ASIO offers the lowest latency of all the audio types in Windows. A dedicated audio device with good ASIO drivers is key to getting live real-time audio performance. With Windows Audio and WASAPI you’re introducing at least 10ms of latency (and most likely more for stability), and that’s before you add any plugins which add additional latency. Not recommended for live audio.

You can read about the comparisons here:

3

For professional use, definitely stick with an ASIO driver.

If Studiologic does not provide an ASIO driver, you can try installing ASIO4ALL, FlexASIO or ASIO2WASAPI drivers, but your mileage may vary.

MacOS may have better performance with its CoreAudio, but on Windows, ASIO is the way.

4

Maybe this can help:

This works pretty good for me in GP5 Pro with my SL88 MK2 built-in audio interface on a windows 11 laptop when I don’t want to carry my better MOTU M4 interface:

5

Yes, you can see that ASIO2WASAPI was recommended there, and I also recommended it here.

I see that you were happy with the solution - great.

6

Thanks for all the help guys, I went ahead and tested the three ASIO drivers ASIO2WASAPI, ASIO4ALL and FlexASIO. For reference here are the results:

ASIO2WASAPI - install was seamless, but didn’t seem to work out of the box. I noticed after install that my Yamaha CP88 had also stopped working too. The solution was to uninstall the Yamaha ASIO drivers, but that then rendered my CP88 useless.

FlexASIO - installed fine, but to configure the driver there is a separate GUI to download or a config file to edit, decided this was too untidy for my workflow.

ASIO4ALL v2 - this seems to be the solution, works with the Studiologic and doesn’t interfere with the Yamaha drivers.

So, for me ASIO4ALL is the winner and GP is working fine now. Even though this is the solution, the question about why the other apps work without the ASIO drivers is still there, but I guess unimportant at this stage.

7

Great to see you happy with the solution.

In some cases, depending on the interface, Windows Audio works very well.
See here a small test: ASIO vs Windows Audio Shootout!