When combining different robo-mechanic instruments and let them
jam together, the most crucial point (beside from making awesome
music) is to set the latencies right. The setup is mostly the
same: we have a robotic music instrument (e.g. a snare with an
solenoid actor), a somewhat electric power unit (Relay,
Motordriver / FET-drive and an Arduino) and a unit to generate
the information, e.g. keyboard or a midi-program like Ableton.
Each instrument has its own unique latency, given by the time
between the “note on” signal (e.g. Ableton triggering a note in
the sequencer), and the time when the tone finally leaves the
physical instrument. These latencies can be up to several 100
microseconds, a delay that a human ear will definitely
recognize. The latency consists of the time for the physical
path that the actor has to resolve to get to the instrument and
the electrical / digital delay inside the electronics and
software. In fact it does not matter where exactly the delay
comes from, we will just measure the wh