Midi - triggering performances - lag

  • Hi all -


    long time kemper user here. My new music project requires that I set all my performances to change via midi. I've never used midi but figured out how to use program changes to move between performances and slots in performance mode. When playing along, I notice there is a slight lag between when the midi sends the change and when my Kemper stage actually changes slots. It is a bit of an issue when going from a rhythm part to a solo, for example, because the first beat of the solo is still using the rhythm patch as the kemper performance slot changes. When I manually switch performance slots using the buttons it has always be instantaneous (to my ears anyway). But with midi there is a noticeable lag.


    My current solution is to set the midi PC to about a 16th note before I want the performance slot to change, and that pretty much makes up for the lag. But I'm wondering if this is typical, or if there is a method I should be using that makes midi changes pretty much instant.


    To the extent it matters, I'm using Ableton to run the midi, goes to a soundcard with midi out to kemper into midi channel 16.


    Thanks in advance for any help here.

  • the time it takes for the Profiler to switch to the next slot in the same performance is about 20-30 ms regardless if you use MIDI or the Remote.

    If you predelay your program changes by that amount you should be good to go. Make sure not to send more than one MIDI command at the same time though because that would need additional time to process.

    Also make sure that the Profiler is not connected to the Rig Manager over USB while sending the MIDI commands.

  • Thanks. Just a quick follow up to your second to last comment. Sometimes, I'm sending a PC to change to a new performance slot and also have wah action drawn in ableton for that new slot so that I do not need to manually use the wah. Is this considered more than one midi command that will cause even greater lag?

  • MIDI is a serial protocol and you can never expect two events to be processed at the exact same time. That said there is a difference between sending a program change and control change #1 at the same time opposed to sending two program changes or a program change and a control change that both select a slot at the same time.