Results of work with Nootka depend on audio input settings.
There is a scheme below to better understand how it works and configure it more effectively.
1. INSTRUMENT
- tune it properly
- play loudly enough
- mute unused strings (if it has strings and it is possible)
2. INPUT AUDIO DEVICE
There is no the best or the worst choice.
- Mic is susceptible on surrounding noises but string noises, loud harmonics (i.e. open strings) and random hits of guitar body doesn’t spoil captured sound much.
- Web-cam is similar to Mic but very often it has built-in hardware noise filters and may amplify filtered sound as well.
- Pick-up(s) of an instrument plugged into line input isolates its sound from surrounding noises but may grab string noises and other undesired things.
3. VOLUME SETTINGS
- Try to set input signal gain that loudest sounds of your instrument will be displayed in range of 50-70% of Nootka sound bar.
- Mic boos rather should be set to minimum.
Internally, Nootka performs digital filtering of incoming audio data before pitch detection starts.
4. NOOTKA SOUND SETTINGS – listening
- Put minimal volume of a note about 10-20% less then the loudest sound of your instrument. I.e. if volume meter jumps to 60% when you play, then put this value to 50%.
- Selecting the best method of pitch detection depends on previously mentioned factors, so simply try which one is better for you.
- Minimal duration of detected note allows to reject any noises or cracks unfiltered so far and detected as a note pitch. If you play into mic or webcam, you may “risk” small values (60-100 ms), but for line-in input better to set it to 150-200 ms or even more (if you bear to play slower).
- Pitch detection is bounded to instrument scale and during exercising/exams to level note range. Other detected notes are simply skipped. But when played with rhythms out of instrument range notes are not rejected, just converted to the rest notes.
Forwarding Audio Input to Output
There is an option on playing settings page to redirect input device audio data to output – that allows to listen to what an instrument is currently playing in loud-speakers.
It works out of the box if instrument or mike is plugged in to the same sound card as loud-speakers are. But when two different devices are used some extra adjustments in the system may be necessary especially when
some sound servers are in use (ASIO, JACK). Those services may work in real-time and Nootka supports that, so it is possible to play with low latency (2 ms – 64 samples for 44100 Hz) if user hardware is capable to it.
However, for more robust work at least 5 ms (256 samples) latency is recommended.