The following optimizations are recommended when using any Digital Audio Workstation with Serato Sample.
Audio settings
Your Digital Audio Workstation (D.A.W.) will offer an Audio buffer size or Audio latency setting. This setting determines how much time is available to the computer to complete all calculations for continuous audio playback.
Audio Latency refers to a short period of delay (usually measured in milliseconds) between when an audio signal enters and when it emerges from a system.
In computer based audio systems a certain amount of latency (known as buffering) is necessary to ensure that playback, recording and processing results in an error-free audio stream without dropouts or glitches.
The audio buffer size, measured in samples, refers to the 'slice' of audio that is processed by your soundcard at any one point. At a setting of 256 samples, a chunk of audio 256 samples long is processed and sent through the soundcard outputs, finally heard as an audio stream through speakers. The soundcard will then fetch the next batch of 256 samples, and repeat the process, during continuous playback. Because this cycle is continuous, the processing 'workload' on the soundcard will be greater when the buffer size is smaller. A larger buffer size on the other hand, will minimize this workload, but will also increase the amount of delay in time, or latency, while the audio signal is processing.
A recommended approach is to find a suitable setting by beginning at 128 samples, and doubling the value until you find a happy medium. Keeping the value in multiples of 2 ensures that your computer processes the audio efficiently and therefore we highly encourage you to maintain buffer sizes of one of the following: 128, 256, 512 or 1024 samples.
A higher sampling rate also reduces the amount of latency. As an example, imagine using a buffer size of 44 samples: with a sample rate of 44.1Khz (samples per second), the latency would then amount to 1 millisecond. If the sample rate is doubled, 44 samples will now correspond to half a millisecond latency, since there are twice as many samples per second. Please note that a higher sample rate will also exert more stress on the CPU.
Further optimizations
We also recommend making some changes in your computer's preferences to ensure that your computer is set up correctly for use with your DAW.
Please note - these optimization steps were written for users of Serato DJ Pro, but are just as relevant if you intend on using any pro audio application on your computer.
You can find further optimization steps in the relevant links below:
Pro tip - the longer the length of an audio file loaded into Serato Sample, the more load you will be putting on Serato Sample and your D.A.W. If you are intending on using multiple instances of Serato Sample in the same project, try to keep the length of each loaded audio file short.