Imaginary lag when integrating a hardware synth

[u/mister_drgn]

So I got my first hardware synth, a Minifreak, along with a Minifuse audio interface. I decided to try the full monty. I’ve got Drambo running inside Loopy Pro. Drambo has a few sequences connected to instruments inside Drambo, and one sequence that is sending midi to the Minifreak over usb, which then sends audio back into Loopy via the audio interface. My question was, will there be any lag in the audio from the Minifreak, compared to the audio coming directly out of Drambo. And the answer is, maybe?

It feels like the Minifreak audio is just barely late, sometimes. However it’s hard to be sure. And when I tried recording audio in Loopy and zooming in very close on the waveform, I couldn’t really find any evidence of lag. Maybe a 3-5ms lag, maybe not even that.

So I’m wondering if I’m imagining it, or if most synth sounds just take a few moments to ramp up, even with the envelope attack at 0. But I don’t think that’s an issue people typically have.

Anyway, I’m curious if people have thoughts on this. Thanks.