To benefit from such low latencies though, its essential that you have a soundcard or audio interface with drivers designed for the job. When it comes to playing software instruments, a latency of 10ms or less is generally regarded as real-time. If the data moves through the buffer too quickly then the CPU may not have time to process it all, and you end up with a glitch or crackle in the audio, so you can see that greater CPU power enables lower latencies, and happily, CPU power has kept on increasing! For real-time processing though, we want that buffer to be as small as possible, but this puts added pressure on the CPU as it has to work faster to maintain the same smooth output. The larger the buffer, the larger the delay/latency, and the smoother the output. As data comes in - in this case representing sound - it fills the buffer, while the CPU processes it and then sends it to the outputs in a constant stream. Why wont Native Instruments Komplete install on my external hard drive I got a separate 1TB drive to use with NI. The delay is caused by a buffer which is a small piece of memory where information to be processed is temporarily stored and sorted.

Latency is a natural function of computers, a built-in delay which allows the CPU to process information and get it out in an orderly fashion. Record and play back music with four analog ins/outs, digital in/out, MIDI, and low-latency performance all in a sleek, rugged metal casing.

Native instruments komplete 7 latency