@Laurent_AODYO Thanks for the info ... that clears things up.

So it sounds like the warm standby setup would be two Sylphyo ... (what is the plural of Sylphyo ... Sylphyos? Sylphyo? Sylphyae?) ... two Sylphyo and two Links with a MIDI-merge downstream of the Links. This would provide as hot a standby as I would like. It also opens possibilities with potentially other players, students, and prospective purchasers (except for sanitization issues ... hmmm ... another topic).

One more question:

I am guessing a Link only remembers one pairing connection? Unlike other devices I have that remember some (small) number of paired devices and recognize whichever ones are in the vicinity ...

I am wondering what the setup would be for two Sylphyo instruments. Assuming both are paired with Link units:

• Does each Sylphyo and each Link need to be on separate channels?

• If they happened to pair on the same channel, what would be the symptoms? I imagine this could happen if I had to re-pair "under the gun" (i.e. at a performance) and they wound up on the same channel.

• Might there be a way to configure a Sylphyo / Link pair to use a specific channel?

Alternately, if I wanted to use a second Sylphyo as a "warm standby" (powered off, but ready to be turned on ...), I would like both the main and standby Sylphyo to be configured to talk to the same Link unit ... is that possible? Only one would be powered on at a time ...

I do find myself drawn mostly to the LUB (Less Updates are Better) camp, so @Peter-Ostry pretty much said it.

I had a well-meaning update by a developer of a hardware unit of mine cripple the unit for me (possibly irrevocably) and it is now out of my rig and garnering dust. Sad. Frustrating. Expensive. Such a fate cannot happen with the Sylphyo or I'll be totally SNAFU.

That said, critical bugs that prevent use or cause crashes need updates. Also, I would welcome additional fingerings, which are unlikely to disturb existing users.

For me, the question is more what we can do as a community to enhance the instrument. This forum does feel a bit thin compared with other vibrant message boards. Some things that come to mind ...

• Suggestions / experiences with cleaning
• Has anyone experienced the issues with salt on their fingers causing fingering issues.
• Experience interfacing with units X, Y, and Z.
• Experience with various settings and why you use them.
• Playing videos, educational videos, getting started videos.
• Routing possibilities with the Link (its a real goldmine, I have found).
• Latency discussions
• Rig setups
• What happens when the battery wears out

... and on and on and on.

I'm guessing that prospective purchasers visit this forum to check out the community activity and enthusiasm. If they see a thin message board, they may be turned off ...

@join Among the many forums I frequent, the system by Discourse.org does seem to me to be the best. It uses trust levels mete out posting capabilities to members based on the reactions of other members to their posts (which are initially very limited).

This is used by the Cantabile group, which is a single-developer project with a large and loyal following. The community provides almost all the user support, courtesy of its most experienced users / participants. Assistance from the developer regarding real issues is only occasional, and only in the most dire problems.

I believe that building a robust user community is a major component to a successful and long-lived product, and the forum software I think is a big part of that.

@peter-ostry I suspect that Robkoo is targeting seniors - folks with a history of playing wind instruments, but can no longer deal with the weight or the embouchure and mechanical issues of a physical instrument. At least that is the suggestion of Calvin Chong, the primary English-language demonstrator and commentator of the R1 on YouTube. It's worth a look at his (so far) three excellent videos on the instrument.

For the senior market, this might be an ideal instrument. As it has worked out, the workshops we host for Native American flute players largely attract an older crowd (avg age 63), probably because the instrument is very light and requires the same breath pressures as talking and novice singing (we did a full-blown study on intra-oral breath pressures across a wide range of ethnic wind instruments). Many of these folks are overjoyed at the opportunity to be musically creative without many of the physical challenges of more mainstream instruments.

Personally I think that the Sylphyo is also ideal for this elder-musician audience, albeit at a higher cost.

The latency of the R1 likely stems largely from the BLE link, which I have seen quoted as having typical latencies of 10-20 msec. (That quote also implies a 10msec jitter, which I think would be even worse than the latency).

@fanch35 From what I understand, the Sylphyo does not have the processing power to do the kind of sound generation that Respiro achieves. I recall that Johnathan commented once (somewhat off the cuff) that a CPU with 10x the processing power would be needed ...

@fanch35 Yes, typically when I plug in an audio interface on a USB port to my laptop or desktop and install the drivers, then the available audio channels - input and output - of the audio interface will shop up alongside the pre-configured audio channels in Windows. (I think that is what you are asking).

Full disclosure: I do not use a Focusrite interface. It is a popular unit that I found a nice picture for the diagram ... I typically use RME interfaces - Babyface and UCX, specifically.

@jjaylds At this point, fingerings can only be added / modified by Aodyo and distributed in a firmware update. The ability for users to add / modify fingerings has been requested and discussed, but there has been no action so far (that we know of).

Here's an image with some options ...

You can go Direct to Headphones to hear the Sylphyo on-board sounds.

You can also route the Sylphyo on-board sounds Direct to a Mixer.

Software Rendering is a more advanced setup. You route MIDI over a USB wire to a Host that runs some rendering software such as a Sampler (Kontakt, for example) or a Soft Synth, typically running in a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). The digital audio output is typically routed to an audio interface and the resulting analog output is set to an output system - headphones, speakers, or an output mixer.

(The audio interface is technically optional: you could take the regular audio output from the laptop / host. However, you will likely not be happy with the latency - the lag in generated sound. Dedicated audio interfaces like the example Focusrite 2i2 are designed to reduce latency in a live sound setting.)

A fourth main option is not shown: Hardware Rendering. Routing the MIDI output to a hardware unit ("synth") that renders sound. Example hardware synths are a CraftSynth, a Yamaha VL70-m (a Patchman Turbo chip is recommended), or a DynaSample XpressO.

A hardware synth will typically take MIDI input over a DIN5 (serial) MIDI cable or a USB cable. If it takes input over a DIN5 cable, you will need an additional box to convert the USB to serial DIN5.

The Double Harmonic and Napolitan Minor fingerings seem to be the same.

They both produce scale steps 1 b2 b3 4 5 b6 7 8 (intervals 1-2-2-2-1-3-1, pitch class set {0,1,3,5,7,8,11}).

Scala (as of 12-Nov-2018) lists this scale with the names: Neapolitan Minor, Mela Dhenuka, Raga Bhinnasadjam, Dhunibinnashadjam, Kirvanti, Takka, Maqam Shahnaz Kurdi, and Hungarian Gipsy. The Wiki page is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neapolitan_scale.

So ... the Napolitan Minor name that the Sylphyo uses seems to fit this scale well.

I am scratching my head as to the intended scale for the Sylphyo fingering named Double Harmonic.

Wikipedia lists Double Harmonic Major (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_harmonic_scale#Modes) with scale steps 1 b2 3 4 5 b6 7 8 (intervals 1-3-1-2-1-3-1), which is the same as the Harmonic Major scale on the Sylphyo, and a wide range of names from various sources (Byzantine; Double Harmonic; Hungarian Gypsy Persian; Theta, Bhairav, etc etc).

@steviek I've been developing and collecting tracks for quite a while, and this has really enhanced my practice and performance.

• For our primary community - Native American flute players - we've developed a series of commercial backing tracks projects (4 CDs and one USB thumb-drive product with 508 tracks) and I use some of those.

• I often download YouTube videos where the music is under a Public Domain (PD) or Creative Commons (CC) license, extract the audio, edit it (Reaper is my current audio hacking tool for this) and curate it as described below.

• There is an entire niche world of composers who develop volumes of CC-BY material, essentially for promotional purposes. Kevin MacLeod is prominent in this area (thousands of great tracks) as well as Alexander Nakarada, Michael Rizk, Scott Buckley, Scott Holmes, Serjo De Lua, Tim Beek, and many others. Check how many composer credits Kevin MacLeod in the IMDB database (!!). The payoff for these composers seems to be the custom work that they get hired to do as a result of the use of the CC licensed tracks.

• I also maintain a few backing tracks with stories tied to them that I use in performance - things tied to my history: A cello ostinato I recorded by David Darling and similar pieces from other departed friends ...

** Curating Backing Tracks **

This has become a bit of a project for me. I play in a lot of different settings. We lead music workshops, as well as various sized gigs and jams.

I run tracks from iPods, from a PC, or backing videos that I play to. I also need to keep the usage rights straight: PD vs the various CC licenses vs Copyrighted. I can use copyrighted material in some settings (workshops under Fair Use statues or public venues that pay performance royalties to ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC) and others where I can only use PD or CC material - and I have to credit the author for most CC tracks.

One gotcha has been the display provided for iPod devices: the cover art has to tell me the title and key that the track is in. I also have multiple lengths of some tracks (iPods are terrible at looping a song), so the cover also has to tell me length and usage rights. For this reason, I develop my own cover art in CorelDraw and change the ID-Tags of the MP3 files to use those cover images. A bit of work, but it pays off when playing live. I also change the title of the song to show these items in compact format.

When I play acoustic Native American flutes (more and more rare these days with the Sylphyo) one of the challanges is pitch-matching. If I have to play softly (e.g. a yoga session) I can easily be 50 cents flat. No way around it. I typically use PC-based backing tracks played by an excellent pitch-shifting player app called "The Amazing Slow Downer". It lets me adjust pitch in cents as well as tempo (independently of pitch) in micro-percents. This has been a real help.

Packed light for a one month tour of Scandinavia – Sylphyo, Link, an RME Babyface, and a laptop (For everything from sound generation to live looping to effects). And then…

The laptop died. Yikes!

I never really had a Plan B and never explored the Sylphyo onboard sounds very much. Now, that’s all I had.

Quickly found some sounds that worked for me (SynthBrass turned out to be really useful, and Braveheart for an Irish air). Hooked into a DJ rig for one set. Then managed to get some backing tracks onto an iPod touch, and mix them through … The Link! The line-in mix capability worked pretty well. Later I got the RME running in class – compliant mode, and was able to do more controlled mixing.

Lessons learned: cozy up to the on-board sounds of the Sylphyo, and try out your Plan B set up before your gear fails.

... and maybe take a second laptop!

@join OK, this is excellent. More than the details, it gives me a whole new perspective on latency ... (but the details are cool too!)

Thank you !!!

(and thanks @Peter-Ostry as well)

It also explains why I saw significantly different MIDI coming out of the Link vs. the Sylphyo USB port for the same input ...

@peter-ostry Excellent analysis. I now understand this much better.

The Sylphyo is my only wind controller. I chose it because of compatibility with Native American flutes ... now I understand why!!

I am wondering if the developers of the Sylphyo (@join ?) could provide some info on the latency of the on-board sounds.

I am wondering how it might compare with wind synths that are not based on MIDI. I have not had the opportunity to play a Lyricon or a CV-based controller tied into a modular synth, but the reports my Matt Traum and Pedro Eustache are that the experience is in another realm (the sound "coming directly out of my mouth" and all that).

Wondering how synth sounds from the Sylphyo compare with those setups ...

Maybe you could briefly describe the signal path internal to the Sylphyo??

@peter-ostry said in The sound of silence...:

Aodyo needs to sell the Anyma Phi. ... ... ...

Well said!!

Just a guess here (I don't own an Anyma Phi) but it may be possible that the stream of MIDI CC commands from the Sylphyo are overloading the Anyma Phi.

Maybe try adjusting the settings on the Sylphyo ... in particular MIDI Mapping => Breath Rate (try Low) and turn off CC transmission for MIDI Mapping => Elevation, Roll, and Compass Control and see if the problem clears up ...

One thing that may help is getting more exposure for the instrument. More sales ==> Better focus and support.

And the best way to get exposure I think is to post videos. I did a basic YouTube show-and-tell on the instrument for the Native American flute crowd. I feared they might revolt ("Not traditional!!"), but there was no backlash, and at least half a dozen folks followed me down this path. Surprise!

Have you tried a full reset on the Sylphyo?

I would suggest, before doing so, writing down each and every setting you have. We currently have to restore those settings by hand since there is no SYSEX save / restore capability.

You might consider a document that shows which settings differ from the defaults so that you only have to set those settings which change from the Reset / Default values.

Yes, this is concern of mine as well. The Sylphyo has been my entre into electronic music that has opened a whole world for me.

I do suspect (and hope) that this hiatus in development - likely caused by the energy spent launching the Anyma Phi - will not be permanent.

I will say that they have been quickly responsive to a request for one additional finger pattern in a finger I authored earlier (Native American Flute), and the Beta firmware they sent me for testing did have other updates, although I do not know what or how large they were.

I had this issue as well ... I think nothing intentional is going on here - just a moderator not keeping up with the membership requests. Maxence used to handle this, but that task may have been taken over by someone else at Aodyo ... I hope this message will get you some action!

J'ai également eu ce problème ... Je pense que rien d'intentionnel ne se passe ici - juste un modérateur qui ne suit pas les demandes d'adhésion. Maxence s'en occupait, mais cette tâche a peut-être été reprise par quelqu'un d'autre chez Aodyo... J'espère que ce message vous fera passer à l'action !

I am not surprised at your "high-pitched whistles" ... I think the problem has to do with the routing of signals on the Link.

The link turns out to be pretty complex and it took me a while to figure it out. However, once I did, I found that the routing can be useful in some situations.

Here is my rendition of the routing:

The phones port (and the Line out ports) are a combination of "A" and "L". "A" is the synthesized sound produced from all the MIDI inputs on 4 different paths. "L" is the Line In port - the one you are feeding back from your PC.

Having two different feeds of the same sound can produce a number of issues: clipping because of too high a combined signal, echo or phase cancellation due to slightly out-of-phase sounds that result from different latencies on the two paths, etc.

Wondering how Sylphyo folks handle portamento on SWAM.

Their virtual instruments respond to multiple keyboard notes and concoct an appropriate glide based on the crossover time between two notes ... not an option for an EWI. Their instruments also respond to CC5 (or any other configured CC) ...

Maybe you map a motion (eg. Roll or Elevation) to CC5?

By the way, here's an updated version of the Laptop Rig ... with a more understandable depiction of the RME interface:

@fanch35 said in Link and PC:

why do you use Babyface AND Mix5?

Because I need knobs. The Mix5 is not strictly necessary, but to balance my sound with a backing track - frequently needed - I really do feel more comfortable with a physical knob. An RME ARC USB unit would provide the same functionality (by allowing me to have a physical knob to control RME's TotalMix software) ... have to consider that ...

Thanks @Fanch35 !!

@gromit said in Link and PC:

This connection is MIDI data only (and power over USB). No audio over USB.

Actually, I think @Fanch35 is referring to the "L" input to the Line In of the Link, which is an audio input. I don't recall how I tested this, but I had some configuration with a line-level stereo signal going into the Link's Line In port, and it was transferred to the Line Out port. However, I think there is no opportunity for mixing the levels of the A audio signal (coming out of the "Synth" section of the Link) and the L audio signal (from the Line In port).

@Fanch35 ... it sounds like you are well beyond the "beginner" stage with this stuff. If you can figure all this out, you're doing great! Yes, if you want the audio to come out from the Link (I'm not sure why ...), then you'll need an audio out from your sound card, audio interface, or other PC output audio port into the Link. However, I think that most folks at this point would route their output from their PC into some audio mixer for better control. I often use a little Mackie Mix5 for this purpose - as an "output mixer" - to let me mix my Sylphyo sound with, for example, a backing track.

One thing to watch out for is latency. If you have (the wonderful) Respiro App / VST rendering sound, how fast you will hear that sound depends on the speed (latency) of the audio output system on your PC. If you are relying on a "generic" sound card or low-end audio interface, you will likely notice a substantial delay between the note you play and the note you hear. Many musician find latency over a certain amount (maybe 20 or 30 or 40 ms (milliseconds)) to be unusable.

Here's a setup I use in small gigs. It is based on the VL70-m hardware sound module - a dedicated box that converts MIDI to (some pretty realistic) sounds (with the help of Matt Traum's Turbo Chip). The output of the VL70-m goes directly into the Mixer (blue wires) and my backing tracks playing off an iPod go into another channel on the Mixer (brown wires). I can monitor my sound on headphones and send it to the house system (whatever speaker system the venue has) at the same time.

And here is a small, laptop-based setup. The Link is MIDI to my PC, which renders sound (the green wires going to the mixer) and also plays my backing tracks (the brown wires going to the mixer). I've got a (very) low-latency RME audio interface - the Babyface Pro FS - that output both of these into my mixer.

I hope this helps!

@wx-is-dead Very cool!! Thanks for posting ... wondering what would the genre of this music would be called??

@laurent_aodyo said in Sylphyo Link wireless with another hardware synth/midi controller ?:

doesn't use Bluetooth

Thank heavens!! The Link radio interface is far superior to Bluetooth ...

Note that the Link unit has a rather complex routing setup that opens up a lot of possibilities. I have used it in a number of cases to reduce the number of boxes I need for certain live setups. Here is a map I've done of the routings (using Aodyo documentation and my own testing). The MIDI section is on the right, the audio section is on the left, and the middle "Synth" section converts incoming MIDI (on four input channels) to Audio (using the same internal sounds as the Sylphyo, as long as you've installed the same firmware on both your Sylphyo and Link):

@fanch35 Personally, I think that some kind of breath adjustment is a requirement for the Sylphyo. I cannot imagine not playing without some restriction in the Bell Port.

If you surf around this forum, you will find numerous schemes for controlling breath volume and back pressure. I've posted a set of 3D printer files on Thingiverse. You can see all things related to the Sylphyo (by myself and others) with a search: https://www.thingiverse.com/search?q=sylphyo&type=things&sort=relevant

However, I think your initial issue is still valid: there is a notable difference in volume across the internal sounds ... even with a breath restrictor ...

@join Thanks for that!

Been playing with Reaction Time and Reaction Time Octaves and I'm getting the feeling that Reaction Time Octaves only comes in to play when I move from one thumb pad to another. My issue seems to occur mostly when I lift my thumb (and simultaneously change fingering on the front side).

In the fingering I'm using, lifting the thumb goes up an octave ... but this seems to use the Reaction Time delay and not the Reaction Time Octaves delay. Is that correct??

One solution is to introduce a very slight articulation to interrupt the airflow. I've started doing this subconsciously and this reduces artifacts (pops and beeps) substantially.

Any advice on how to achieve smooth transitions between octaves (registers) during legato play?

My register breaks are beset with the usual POPs and BEEPs you might expect from not all fingers arriving on their pads at the same time. Mostly the thumb, of course ... I don't have these issues when planting or removing multiple fingers on the front of the instrument.

I've set Reaction Time to 1ms, primarily because it (seems to) globally affect latency, and I'm a bit (bit??) of a latency minimizing fanatic. But even at 10ms I'm getting POPs and BEEPs.

I thought it might be that I am using a fingering (NAF+) that goes up an octave when you lift the thumb. However, switching to the NAF fingering, which does not respond to lifting the thumb, shows no improvement.

Any suggestions welcome ...

I would like to request an addition to the two Native Flute fingerings for the next firmware release. I had previously made these requests directly though Maxence ... hope it is OK to post these on the forum ...

The updated YML file has tags for 15Mar22 to identify the updates. There are a total of 3 additions which really consist of a single additional fingering. The YML file (containing both Native Flute and Native Flute+ fingerings) is available at: https://Goss.com/yml/naf.sylphyomap.yml

The details are: 15Mar22 CG Add <xxo|xxo (previously unused) to play the perfect fifth above <xxx|xxx. This was suggested by flutemaker Rick Svitzer, to avoid a two-handed fingering "swap" when going between <xxo|xoo and <xxx|ooo when playing in Mode 4. Rick tunes his flutes with this cross-fingerings. This also make sense for Mode 4 fingering in, for example, the descending scale sequence:

<ooo|xoo <xoo|xoo <xxo|xoo <xxo|xxo <xxo|xxx <xxx|xxo <xxx|xxx
 octave     b7       b6        5        4       b3        1

@fanch35 I agree that the volume deviations between the voices / patches are as you described (generally), given the voices / patches you mentioned.

@peter-ostry Well, maybe @Meo is talking about micro-tuning ... i.e. what the pitch standard is (A4=440 Hz, 432, 444, etc) ...

Could you give us more information @Meo??

Any idea ? Normal ?

I find this common in collections of sounds ... such as Matt Traum's Turbo chip for the Yamaha VL70-m. Matt explains it in the FAQ for that chip:

From https://www.patchmanmusic.com/turboVLFAQ.html

Q.) Some TURBO VL sounds are louder than others. Why is this and is there anything I can do about it?

A.) When programming these Voices we decided to generally try to get the very best possible dynamic range out of each individual Voice. This helps to reduce the noise level of the VL70-m (which was a frequent complaint with the stock VL70-m.) ... All of the Voices were very carefully programmed to play as loud and dynamically as possible. A small number of Voices simply could not be boosted as loud as the others without distorting. So instead of compromising the dynamic range of ALL the other Voices to match the few that had lower volumes, we decided to make each Voice as dynamic as possible. We did balance the volumes slightly but opted towards maximum punch in general. ...

... and I am guessing that the story is similar for the internal voices of the Sylphyo.

Thanks all for calming my FOMU (Fear of Messing Up) fears.

Coincidentally, had a significant gig last night for an audience of mostly "analog" musicians, which I turned into a showcase for electronic wind instruments. Sound check, AOK. Then 45 seconds before starting, my Link stopped responding. YIKES!

Unplugged and re-inserted the USB connection to my computer and all was immediately restored ... whew!

Thankfully, this hiccup was pretty much the only hint of a hiccup in a string of 23 gigs over the past 10 weeks. I can maybe chalk it up to the unusual (excessive?) amount of on-stage gear and wireless signals (various iPad connecting to sound systems and a venue full audience with WiFi-active devices in their pockets). Is that a reasonable explanation??

@join I'm curious what the resolution is ... in case it happens to others (gulp) ... during the sound check before a performance (double gulp).

Might it involve missing Note Off MIDI commands ... possibly because of a MIDI buffering issue??

@bo2 Here is another configuration that I use when I am programming the VL70-m from an editor on my laptop:

(click on the image for a larger / more detailed version)

@join I've been working with the Sylphyo almost exclusively for the last 3 months, and for me the stand-out feature I would love to see improved is Key Bend.

The issues are discussed in this post.

The primary items (for me) are:

• The range of the bending should happen according to the actual fingering setup. If opening a hole would raise pitch a semitone, the Key Bend range should be a semitone, If opening a hole would raise pitch a whole tone or a minor third, then the Key Bend should be a whole tone or a minor third.

• Key Bending needs to work with cross-fingerings. For example, Key Bend from <xxx|ooo to <xox|ooo currently does nothing.

• There should be a finger velocity sensitivity adjustment to filter out unwanted bending while normal playing.

Thanks for anything you could do in these areas!

I am posting my latest reference diagram for my basic setup with a Sylphyo and a Yamaha VL70-m sound module. (Click on the image for a larger version)

Of course, you could eliminate the mixer and iPod and just listen to or feed directly from the VL70-m.

The list of connections below the "to House/Sound System" are a catalog of the adapters that I carry to accommodate various connectors that I might encounter on the road.

I am posting this here to augment discussions in other forums (YouTube and personal emails ...) so that I can direct folks to this forum.

Hello @meo - Could you tell us about your setup?

In particular ...

• Are you using the internal sounds of the Sylphyo?

• Are you using the Link radio receiver?

• Are you using MIDI over the USB link to trigger sounds on some other device, such as a hardware sound module or a computer-based software virtual instrument?

@peter-ostry Thanks Peter! Part of what I am thinking is suggestion number 2 of @gbarcza :

"a finger velocity sensivity adjustment to filter out unwanted bending while normal playing"

... along with maybe an addition setting to not begin key-bending until some percentage of the pad is uncovered.

The act of key bending on physical open-hole flutes is sooo natural and common that I think it would provide a very direct means of expressivity to a significant percentage of potential Sylphyo players ...

Making use of CC's to accomplish key-bending is (I'm thinking out loud here ...) maybe not so straightforward ... such a system would need to know which base key is in effect in order to determine which pair of notes we are bending from (easy - the prior Note On) and to (challenging - where is the target note??)

I am wondering if, in any potential firmware upgrade, might there be any process to a more usable key-bend? The issues / suggestions posed by @gobarcza in the opening message of this thread are central to the key-bend issues, along with the lack of a key-bend on cross-fingered fingerings.

Alternately, has anyone made use of the CC-based version of key-bend? In particular, if using a sampler (Kontakt in my case), is there a straightforward way to accomplish a workable key-bend using CC 78?

On physical, open-holed flutes, performing key-bends are so natural that they have become part of the core repertoire of every player. Not having them available for most of the scale on the Sylphyo is a huge disappointment and handicap for me.

Thanks for any progress that could be made in this area in any upcoming release ...

@steviek Thanks for that. I'm not really looking for recognition - I'd rather have some understanding of how this works so I can better optimize my system ... or suggestions as to things we might try to make the latency better and (more important) less variable.

@peter-ostry I've done a deep-dive into latency to understand and improve my rig. I did this particular test looking for the source of something that happened to me on a gig on Saturday ... while doing a series of fast runs (in an awesome duet jam with a drummer), what I thought was my last run on the Sylphyo was followed by another run coming out of my rig. Big surprise to me ... and likely an extreme case of latency (like maybe 1 second?)

do you feel that the jitter of 1-12 ms affects your playing?

It's the jitter, but on a larger scale ...

In general, latency on the various setups I use is inconsistent - sometimes it's "pretty darn good" and sometimes its "barely usable". It seems to vary unpredictably at different times with the same rig setup. Subjectively, the variation seems to be much more than 12 msec - like maybe 50 msec? I've never played with a CV setup direct to a synth (latency in nanoseconds, people say), but I've gotten pretty sensitive to changes in latency - especially unpredictable ones.

Wondering now if the Radio interface and Link could be the issue. Does the Link get into "states" where it is backed up or bogged down? Maybe it has to do with the WiFi environment it is running in?? Would a Link Reset help (have not really explored this)???

and you tried everything you can.

I think there are many more things to try ... a change in DAW (I have some some quick tests with Reaper, and get different results ... but at a different time, not side-by-side with Cantabile), a change in host, audio interface, USB configuration, etc etc.

However, I am on the road now (playing out 3-4 times a week for the last month and next two months) ... and don't have all the tools to do this testing. Also, I keep changing rig configurations every time I play depending on the needs (and setup time available), so I'm introducing a lot of variability. Feels like I'm around the Gemini VIII stage of the Moon program.

I am hoping that the Aodyo folks such as @join might shed some light on this, and shortcut my hours and hours of trying to track this down ...

I would hate to revert to playing with a wire attached to my Sylphyo ...

Here is a diagram of my test setup:

I just tried removing the Hub and sending the wired Sylphyo and the Link directly into two USB ports on my laptop.

Latency was still variable (1 to 12 msec), but there was less modification of the Link's MIDI as compared with the direct MIDI from the Sylphyo.

It does look like the Link is not simply producing a copy of the MIDI coming out of the Sylphyo, but composing its own MIDI stream from ?maybe? transmitted sensor data?

It also may be that config changes on the Sylphyo (e.g. changing Breath Rate) may not completely change the behavior of the Link ... but power-cycling the Link does seem to fix that.

While doing latency tests of MIDI produced by my Sylpyo over different routes (Direct vs Link) I found some perplexing behavior ...

The "Direct" route was set up with a wire from the Sylphyo to a USB Hub into my laptop running Cantabile.

The "Link" route used measured simultaneously using a Link paired to the Sylphyo and wired from the USB Power Supply (USB Mini-B) port to the same Hub into my laptop running Cantabile.

• The MIDI arriving over the Direct route is noticeably different than the Link route. In some cases, a single note over the Direct route become 2 or 3 separate notes arriving from the Link route.

... Note-off events also seem to arrive earlier over the Link route than the MIDI route.

• The Link MIDI is delayed behind the Direct MIDI by a latency that ranged from 1 to 12 msec, in my tests.

This random jitter was not affected by the setting of MIDI Mapping / Velocity (Dynamic vs 127) nor MIDI Mapping / Breath / Breath Rate (I tried High (500Hz) through Low (125 Hz)).

Doing a full reset on the Sylphyo did not seem to affect the latency.

However, power-cycling the Link did seem to improve the latency noticeably.

• The delay I measured in the Link MIDI behind the Direct MIDI was always an exact multiple of 1.000 msec. Not sure why this is or what I might be doing wrong in taking my measurements.

Can anyone possibly shed any light on these pecular findings??

Summary Stats

All measured at a sample rate of 44.1 KHz. All tests done 10 or 20 times:

Velocity = Dynamic / Breath Rate = High
Link MIDI behind Direct MIDI: 88-441 Samples (2.00 to 10.00 msec)

Velocity = 127 / Breath Rate = High
Link MIDI behind Direct MIDI: 353-441 Samples (8.00 to 10.00 msec)

Velocity = 127 / Breath Rate = Medium
Link MIDI behind Direct MIDI: 44-485 Samples (1.00 to 11.00 msec)

Velocity = 127 / Breath Rate = Low
Link MIDI behind Direct MIDI: 309-529 Samples (7.01 to 12.00 msec)

Velocity = 127 / Breath Rate = Low (After power-cycle on the Link)
Link MIDI behind Direct MIDI: 133-265 Samples (3.02 to 6.01 msec)

I am wondering if anyone has looked into the suggestion of @vincent (earlier in this thread) that

it was not moisture as such, the problem, but salt one.

I have had one situation where I started getting erratic notes. I swabbed down my fingers and all the finger pads on the Sylphyo with a slightly damp cloth. It worked immediately and completely to resolve the erratic behavior. However, since it was only a single test, I have not reported it before.

In other cases of erratic notes - they only happen when I first turn on the Sylphyo and I usually just "wiggle my fingers" for maybe 5-10 seconds and the erratic notes disappear and never return during play.

Would love to hear if other have experimented with this ... as @vincent points out, erratic notes could be a real show-stopper ...

@steviek I've contacted one of the very active makers of Native American flutes, and he has looked into the superhydrophobic products that are available .... in particular ...

https://nationalpolymer.com/hydrophobic-coatings/
and
https://www.neverwet.com/

His has not pursued them because of the (severe) risks involved in applying those coatings. Here is the text of his reply ... From Jon Norris (Jon Norris Music and Arts):

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I actually looked into Neverwet when it first came out because they had a viral video about it. Apparently the stuff -- at least at the time -- was incredibly toxic, and it had to be reapplied from time to time.

I looked into hydrophobic and hydrophilic plastics as well, and they're permanent, but they're a bit of a nightmare to apply as you can't sand them and can't get any glue or finish on them other than on the attached side.

If there was something permanent and not deadly and fairly easy to apply, I'd use it in a heartbeat as it would almost entirely prevent wet-out. I just haven't found anything like that yet, so I use CA glue on the block and flue to make it virtually plastic, then apply RainX, which does help a good bit.
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