[atomack]

There's something weird here though. I reckon more 4 or 5 ms of latenecy is enough to put me off playing something in time (this is about what you aim for using DAWs to record music) and yet if you just think about playing a piano, the player's ear is about 1m from where the sound is generated. The speed of sound in air is ~300m/s so there's 3 ms of delay right there, even if the hammer mechanism is instantaneous, and I've never heard a pianist complain about delay.

Maybe it's just familiarity but even that feels too simple an explanation

[organsnyder]

I'm an organist. The organ console is often placed quite some distance from the pipes—especially in the instance of remote divisions such as antiphonal stops (placed at the back of the sanctuary). In addition to distance, the mechanism of the instrument itself introduces a bit of lag. It's something that you just get used to. Choral and orchestral musicians also often deal with these sorts of issues: sometimes they have to play entirely on sight (watching the conductor's baton) rather than listening to the (delayed) sound.

I used to play Dance Dance Revolution quite regularly. One of our controllers had a lag that made it unplayable for most people. But I found my brain adjusting to it extremely quickly, and I think it's because I was accustomed to doing that already during organ playing.

[atomack]

Somehow the audience also manages to adjust too, trained or not. The violins and cellos are several metres apart yet I think the audience would agree whether they come off together or not, regardless of where they're sitting in the auditorium

I wonder if actually it's the delays plus reverb we manage to adjust to. I remember playing church organ too, a while back, and I found the delays much easier to get used to than say a 4 or 5 ms delay in a DAW, even though the delay was probably much bigger. It's like it's training + room acoustics that we use to adjust, rather than the raw numbers of the physical delay

[xahrepap]

My wife is a musician and sang in a highschool/college choir. She hated when they combined with the orchestra and the orchestra conductor conducted a song. Said it felt like the conductor was off a bit because he compensates for different delays.

[hutzlibu]

"Maybe it's just familiarity but even that feels too simple an explanation"

I think it is. Because it has always been like this for anyone since he played the first time. You press the key and (a bit later) music comes. I doubt anyone consciously notice that it is not instant, but your mind notices and adjusts to it.

[atomack]

But I could play either Jerry Lee Lewis style, arms length from the keyboard with my head back, or Glenn Gould style, hunched over the keyboard and my head moves a metre between the two. So that's around the 3ms threshold where I (and the sound engineer above) claim to be able to detect delays, and yet I don't think I'd notice a delay between those two playing positions

[danharaj]

Your brain is very good at compensating for noise and delay in a feedback loop it controls so it's hard to say one way or another. Maybe it feels like a difference in expression instead of a change in delay? A better experiment would be to, like, hm...

let's say you're standing a few meters from a metronome and a musician playing to it. If the musician is close to the metronome, you will hear their playing on beat. The further the musician plays from the metronome, the more delay between you hearing the metronome and their playing, unless the musician stands between you and the metronome. When would you notice the delay?

[atomack]

Yes, something like that. As I mentioned elsewhere, I wonder if the result might be affected by the acoustics of the room as well as the physical proximity of the sound sources

[adrianmonk]

It depends on what scenario you're talking about. One scenario where delay is often used is when you have speakers at different locations to provide even coverage for a crowd.

For example, at a really large outdoor concert, you might have speakers near the stage, and another set of speakers further back. If you don't add any delay, then the people sitting far back will hear the signal once from the speakers closest to them, and then they will hear it again from the speakers that are further away (by the stage). The effect will sound like an echo.

So you delay the sound coming out of the further back speakers just enough so that as sound arrives from the stage, the speakers further back produce it at the same time.

And it's not just large venues. in small venues, you sometimes cannot cover the whole area evenly with one set of speakers, so you might have small "fill" speakers to deal with coverage gaps.

[SamReidHughes]

That’s not as bad as the nerve conduction latency.

Also, on a grand piano, the hammer generally strikes before bottoming out, unless you play sufficiently loud, the timing dependent on how loud you’re playing. You have to begin moving your fingers or hands downward into the keys farther in advance when playing quietly, which is a whole thing when your hands are at different volumes. The mass and mechanical advantage of the finger affect the timing and volume, too.