Zero latency on Android coming right up.

Cacofonix

http://www.ikmultimedia.com/news/?item_id=5235

Excellent!

Deijavoo

Could be very handy!

ThePrettyDamned

YES

imalone

<Checks date... not 1st April.>
Definitely buying some IK gear soon then.

digitalscream

Whoa....what? Android 4.0 onwards?

The question has to be asked...why didn't they start pulling their finger out in 2011 when 4.0 came out, then? I can't believe it's taken 4 years to develop it...

imalone

digitalscream said:

Whoa....what? Android 4.0 onwards?

The question has to be asked...why didn't they start pulling their finger out in 2011 when 4.0 came out, then? I can't believe it's taken 4 years to develop it...

Wondering if they've come to some deal with Samsung about their audio framework. Or maybe it's just a typo for 5.0.

Cacofonix

I think that it is low level code rewriting.  The designer of Kitkat basically said he wasn't going to do a rewrite as there were other things to think about first, so latency was way down his priority list.

IK seem to be implying that it's an overall fix.

Good news.

digitalscream

Cacofonix said:

I think that it is low level code rewriting.  The designer of Kitkat basically said he wasn't going to do a rewrite as there were other things to think about first, so latency was way down his priority list.

IK seem to be implying that it's an overall fix.

Good news.

Nah, it's just Linux - and it's had modular sound systems which can run side-by-side for donkey's years. No rewrite required - if nothing else, they could write their own and drop it in there (although I guess permissions might be a bit tough, given that apps are sandboxed).

imalone

Reading between the lines in http://cgi.ikmultimedia.com/ikforum/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=9535 (usb otg, any Android 4.0, less than 2ms latency) it actually sounds like a usb widget which does the audio processing and just uses the android device as a controller)

digitalscream

Yep...which actually isn't a problem, since you always need some sort of outboard device anyway.

imalone

Unfortunately my poor little S4 mini can't handle USB otg, but that may have always put paid to using it with an irig type device. Still, this will probably mean I don't need to get hold of a top of the line tablet to run it.

Cacofonix

digitalscream said:

Cacofonix said:

I think that it is low level code rewriting.  The designer of Kitkat basically said he wasn't going to do a rewrite as there were other things to think about first, so latency was way down his priority list.

IK seem to be implying that it's an overall fix.

Good news.

Nah, it's just Linux - and it's had modular sound systems which can run side-by-side for donkey's years. No rewrite required - if nothing else, they could write their own and drop it in there (although I guess permissions might be a bit tough, given that apps are sandboxed).

I know it's just linux.  But the kernel is not modular, it's monolithic, and it needs a rewrite to sort out the latency issues, particularly where they are based on different architectures.

IK have done something special/unusual to get to the underlying architecture, at least according to them.  IT won't be a hardware based thing unless they have managed to get latency reports from the running kernel and compensated for that, which itself isn't an easy task, and again was something the designer of the kernel didn't want to get involved in.

monquixote

digitalscream said:

Cacofonix said:

I think that it is low level code rewriting.  The designer of Kitkat basically said he wasn't going to do a rewrite as there were other things to think about first, so latency was way down his priority list.

IK seem to be implying that it's an overall fix.

Good news.

Nah, it's just Linux - and it's had modular sound systems which can run side-by-side for donkey's years. No rewrite required - if nothing else, they could write their own and drop it in there (although I guess permissions might be a bit tough, given that apps are sandboxed).

It's not that easy unfortunately. 

My work do Android audio software and it's a total PITA.

Android doesn't give you any kind of accurate timing on audio buffers so there is nothing you can do other than write your own sound stack and that would only work on a rooted Android phone. 

I suspect it is some kind of clever bit of hardware which is just using the android device as a UI and mass storage device. 

dafuzz

I'd assumed it was something to do with the Dalvik VM being replaced by ART - no?

EDIT: no That only happened in 4.4

digitalscream

monquixote said:

It's not that easy unfortunately. 

My work do Android audio software and it's a total PITA.

Android doesn't give you any kind of accurate timing on audio buffers so there is nothing you can do other than write your own sound stack and that would only work on a rooted Android phone. 

I suspect it is some kind of clever bit of hardware which is just using the android device as a UI and mass storage device. 

Hmmm. I suppose that's a possibility too. In that case, would this really be a future-proof solution given that Google are going to be pushing Android's native low-latency audio from 5.0 onwards?

monquixote

digitalscream said:

monquixote said:

It's not that easy unfortunately. 

My work do Android audio software and it's a total PITA.

Android doesn't give you any kind of accurate timing on audio buffers so there is nothing you can do other than write your own sound stack and that would only work on a rooted Android phone. 

I suspect it is some kind of clever bit of hardware which is just using the android device as a UI and mass storage device. 

Hmmm. I suppose that's a possibility too. In that case, would this really be a future-proof solution given that Google are going to be pushing Android's native low-latency audio from 5.0 onwards?

It will have to be that if it's really going to work on a wide range of phones. 

Outside of the real flagship stuff audio on Android is very often totally borked. It's not uncommon for phones to advertise a sample rate and then either fail to produce any output or worse silently provide a different sample rate (meaning it plays back at the wrong speed).

Cacofonix

monquixote said:

digitalscream said:

Cacofonix said:

I think that it is low level code rewriting.  The designer of Kitkat basically said he wasn't going to do a rewrite as there were other things to think about first, so latency was way down his priority list.

IK seem to be implying that it's an overall fix.

Good news.

Nah, it's just Linux - and it's had modular sound systems which can run side-by-side for donkey's years. No rewrite required - if nothing else, they could write their own and drop it in there (although I guess permissions might be a bit tough, given that apps are sandboxed).

It's not that easy unfortunately. 

My work do Android audio software and it's a total PITA.

Android doesn't give you any kind of accurate timing on audio buffers so there is nothing you can do other than write your own sound stack and that would only work on a rooted Android phone. 

I suspect it is some kind of clever bit of hardware which is just using the android device as a UI and mass storage device. 

Yes, that sounds reasonable.  It is likely to be akin to a standalone/hardware VST host. 

Although I suppose it will have to use the speakers in the device so it will still have to go via the kernel, albeit as a media player rather than an audio processor.

imalone

Announced! http://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/irigua/index.php?pp=irigua-info
It sounds like they've done something extra to take advantage of Samsung Professional Audio or Android 5.0 features if available. For non-SPA/android 5 it's not clear to me that it will play back through the device at all, so in a way more akin to a Pod controlled by android. Hopefully with more flexibility and ability to load new amp models. Actually, with only three effects my Mustang I is still more capable, but might still see about getting one.