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An update on Android's audio latency

android-developers.googleblog.com

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Re: An update on Android's audio latency

#101

Post by TheRealSteel »

Drakim wrote: post #16
Jeff_Brown wrote: post #10

The figure of most interest to someone playing an electronic instrument is "tap-to-touch latency". The article indicates a minimum of 43 ms for that (28 round trip latency - 5 audio input latency + 20 touch latency). That's like ten times what you'd hope for.

Emulators of old retro games also care about audio latency, as the emulated audio is generated on the fly by a turning machine, which makes it very hard to match visuals to audio if there is inherent audio latency.

I was very sad when I got a Galaxy Note (R.I.P. Note line) and Elite Beat Agents was unplayable due to audio lag. It makes sense, but it is a shame.

Re: An update on Android's audio latency

#102

Post by mellosouls »

exikyut wrote: post #88
mellosouls wrote: post #32

Off topic, but would be nice if they could do something - presumably far simpler - about the lack of fine-grained volume control. It might be a niche case, but it's really frustrating using the various sleep-related audio apps at night with earphones and not being able to select a minimum volume that is both loud enough to hear but not so loud it keeps you awake (example: Audible with a sleep timer). I'm sure there a…

That sounds involved but 100% doable using synthesized volume limiting in-app. Have you tried pestering Audible? Would probably take a while, but it feels like the kind of thing that would be hard to "un-justify" once you started arguing for it.

That's a nice idea - there are apps that purport (unsuccessfully in my experience) to work around the issue using software though I don't know they use that approach.

Obviously any major app supplier may be reductant to invest significant dev time to offer a workaround for an OS limitation (and Audible is just an example), but yes it's worth raising I suppose, thanks.

Re: An update on Android's audio latency

#103

Post by theshrike79 »

kllrnohj wrote: post #78
kall wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be a little pedantic: He is not claiming that producers are never using PCs, he is claiming that live audio never runs on PC, because stability is the top priority there. Later he says in the studio you can tolerate a little instability if the other benefits of windows are worth it. That no producers are using windows PCs is an obviously false claim. There are DAWs that don't even run on mac. There are also live p…

> That macs are more stable in day-to-day operation is not really a bold claim though. It absolutely is. Do you have any data to back up the claim? Anecdotally windows 10's stability seems vastly superior, especially with every release of MacOS seemingly regressing further and further.

I got the idea that "stability" here doesn't refer to crashing, but more about the fact that the computer behaves in a consistent manner.

You won't get a sudden I/O or CPU load during important operations for example.

Re: An update on Android's audio latency

#104

Post by xenadu02 »

Blueskytech wrote: post #60

If android can get its audio latency act together there is some real opportunity here to steal market share from Apple. Since the release of the 2nd iPad Pro Apple has forced audio processing onto the slower low power CPU core, this means that for the last three years I can run all my iOS synth applications at 96kHZ with a low buffer sample size without any drop outs on my first gen iPad Pro and an iPad mini 3. What…

> Since the release of the 2nd iPad Pro Apple has forced audio processing onto the slower low power CPU core

What makes you believe this?

Re: An update on Android's audio latency

#105

Post by pjmlp »

jefftk wrote: post #17

This is way better than it used to be (I measured half a second latency in 2012: https://www.jefftk.com/p/android-sound-synthesis-and-latency ) but it is still too high to let you use an Android device as a musical instrument. This is something iPhones have always been able to do, and one of my biggest disappointments with Android. (Disclosure: I work for Google, speaking only for myself)

On the 3D side it is similarly disappointing, as Google never put the effort of proper frameworks similar to Apple's kits, and SceneForm on Google's tradition is now deprecated after VR on Android lost its marketing drive.

Re: An update on Android's audio latency

#106

Post by pjmlp »

Blueskytech wrote: post #60

If android can get its audio latency act together there is some real opportunity here to steal market share from Apple. Since the release of the 2nd iPad Pro Apple has forced audio processing onto the slower low power CPU core, this means that for the last three years I can run all my iOS synth applications at 96kHZ with a low buffer sample size without any drop outs on my first gen iPad Pro and an iPad mini 3. What…

On Android is even worse, specially if one gets an average model.

Re: An update on Android's audio latency

#107

Post by fistynuts »

RedNifre wrote: post #77

For comparison, the Nintendo Switch cardboard piano works by having you press a cardboard key with a highly reflective sticker on the other end, to lift that sticker above a barrier, so it can be seen by the game controller's integrated IR camera, which streams the image over to the switch over bluetooth, which then runs some image analysis to figure out which key sticker just became visible and THEN plays a note and…

Do you have any figures to corroborate that? Because it sounds incredibly unlikely.

Re: An update on Android's audio latency

#108

Post by fistynuts »

Jeff_Brown wrote: post #10

The figure of most interest to someone playing an electronic instrument is "tap-to-touch latency". The article indicates a minimum of 43 ms for that (28 round trip latency - 5 audio input latency + 20 touch latency). That's like ten times what you'd hope for.

The article specifically says that tap to tone latency is typically around 20ms.

Re: An update on Android's audio latency

#109

Post by normaler »

foobar33333 wrote: post #92
andrepd wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does this mean? I can choose not to install google services in my phone, and use an open app store like F-Droid. Not that it counts for much in the grand scheme of things, seeing as 99% of users will never install a custom rom.

It used to be possible to dip your toes in with light modifications while still keeping everything working. Now with verified boot chains, safety net and hardware backed verification, you either have everything fully locked down or you go full Richard Stallman and have everything foss.

RMS does not own a cellphone according to:

https://stallman.org/rms-lifestyle.html

Re: An update on Android's audio latency

#110

Post by _flux »

Drakim wrote: post #16
Jeff_Brown wrote: post #10

The figure of most interest to someone playing an electronic instrument is "tap-to-touch latency". The article indicates a minimum of 43 ms for that (28 round trip latency - 5 audio input latency + 20 touch latency). That's like ten times what you'd hope for.

Emulators of old retro games also care about audio latency, as the emulated audio is generated on the fly by a turning machine, which makes it very hard to match visuals to audio if there is inherent audio latency.

If just matching is desired then you can just buffer video frames; all audio frameworks provide means to synchronize video and audio.

Of course, it probably makes the experience just worse if the delay is silly long..

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