So I finally got a keyboard - M-audio Oxygen 49. It's not bad for a beginner, since I don't even know how to play piano. Now I noticed that there is a huge latency. If I change frequency settings to higher frequencies, then it overloads the processor.

Are there any sound cards with a processor on-board processor to off-load the CPU? I know they do this with video cards...

In other words, how can I reduce the latency without overloading the CPU?

Thanks!

Get a faster computer

You will always get latency though, but nothing so bad that you can't fix it by quantizing.

Well, I don't want to spend on a faster computer yet. It's not so bad actually, when I play on regular 44100 frequency, then I can have like 100s of devices and it pulls just fine. It's a 1.7Ghz with 2.5GB of RAM, so it's still ok I think.

But I was thinking of upgrading the sound card anyways, because I have SB Live 5.1, which isn't the best card for production... That's why I asked.

Well you computer sounds fine. Is the latency still really bad when the rack is empty?

My sound card is pretty poor, and i'm running a 3.1Ghz with 768Mb ram. But my latency isn't a problem at all. Not to sure what settings Reason is set to though.

The latency happens even with the empty rack and the CPU is only lightly loaded, but if I go to Preferences -> Audio and then change the frequency to the highest (I think it's 91000 or something like that), the latency drops to 42ms, and then it's really good on the empty rack, but as soon as it starts to fill up, the CPU starts to get tired

Without my computer infront of me I can't tell you what my settings are. I'll have a look tonight and let you know.

I can't imagine it's the sound card. That would only effect the ausio out. Your keyboard would be plugged into the USB not soundcard yes? If your powering the keyboard via USB, trying plugging in the main power so see if that helps. I take it you have checked the keyboards documentation.

Check the transfer rate of your USB ports as well. Or if your plugging it into your front USB's try the back ones.