u/Xyxzyx

Howdy YARGers,

Posted this in Discord but didn't get much traction, so I am posting to Reddit as well.

I am a recent Clone Hero convert if only for the metronome feature. I love drumming with really narrow hit windows, and the metronome feature has been great for helping me play tighter.

However, the metronome has also exposed an issue: my audio latency is constantly changing, enough to require frequent recalibrations. I first calibrated audio latency to 0ms and played a handful of songs without issue, then noticed the metronome became out of sync. After recalibration, it landed on 100ms (!!!), and then a handful of songs later I had to recalibrate down to 50ms. It continued to slide all over the place for the remainder of the session. (Note: this can occur for the *same song*, so not a charting issue)

I started a new session today and the 50ms felt fine to start with, but then I needed to change to 5ms, then negative (???), and again it generally was just unstable.

My audio path is simply: laptop 3.5mm audio out connected to my Roland TD17 "mix in" 3.5mm port, and my headphones are plugged into my drumkit. This way, I hear both my drums and the game audio at once. Ingame, I am using the default audio buffer size of 75ms.

I thought it might be an issue with my laptop, but system utilization seemed fine every time I checked - 50% RAM, 20-40% CPU, low disk and network traffic. I have no dedicated GPU, but I turned off the venues and maintain a stable 60 FPS when playing.

Things I have tried which have not really helped:

Restarting the laptop
Closing all other applications
High Performance power mode
Laptop dock with fans
Adjusting sample rate between 48k and 44.1k

So, what might be causing this? Thermal throttling, despite the fans and low utilization? Windows nonsense?

And what might be the fix, or at least troubleshooting steps to try? I have a Scarlett Solo I can place between my laptop and my drum module, but it's not clear to me what that actually accomplishes so I'd rather not add another variable unless I have reason to believe it could actually help.

Thanks for your time!

Hey all,

I have been drumming for a couple of years now but I still struggle with moving my left hand between my snare and hi-hat on faster beats. For example, Move Along by The All-American Rejects has a sixteenth note hi-hat beat with a lot of left-handed snare hits, requiring the left hand to switch between hi-hat and snare often. See this drum cover starting around 3:28 -Lindsey makes it looks effortless, but when I attempt a beat like this my hands and sticks are smacking together a lot.

From my research online, some folks seem to:

Move their right hand further out so that their left stick never risks crossing the right stick (the left stick always hits "inside"/closer to the body than the right stick). However, this seems to require either leaning forward or bringing the hi-hat closer, neither of which seem very ergonomic.
"Sweep" the left hand up to the hi-hat quickly, though this seems to (1) be a special technique for specific occasions rather than a singular approach and (2) require the hi-hat to be fairly close to the snare (my hi-hat is raised much more).
Hit the snare head very far to the left with their left hand to avoid hitting the right one. While this can achieve a fine-enough sound, or even a perfect sound depending on the groove, it doesn't really feel suitable for a primary technique as I would ideally prefer to hit the snare dead-center most of the time.
Hit the hi-hat very far to the right side with their right hand to avoid hitting the left one. I haven't practiced much with this, but ideally I'd prefer to hit the hi-hat straight-on as well, rather than "glancing it" at an angle.

And with all of that said, going back to the Move Along video, Lindsey does none of those techniques - she just drums straight sixteenths and alternates her left hand effortlessly, seemingly hitting both the hi-hat and snare dead-center with both hands. Her hi-hats seem fairly tall, so maybe that it part of it? But other than that, maybe it really does just come down to practice which I need to do more of.

How do you guys handle this left-hand switching - do you just use one "technique" or do you alternate approaches depending on the groove? And what do you recommend for someone looking to improve here?

Fluctuating Audio Latency - Have to Constantly Adjust It

Moving left hand between snare and hi-hat