Audio Interfaces - something with super-low latency

A

Analoguesque

New member
I recently started searching for a new audio interface for several reasons (ranting begins ....)

My "super quality" Realtek soundcard (sarc.) is not friendly with Win10. Why did I use it? This thing got me down to 2ms latency in Win8 using ASIO4ALL - 2ms!! Well now in Win10 I have to fenagle things each time I want to watch a YouTube video, as opposed to recording in FL Studio Producer.

My Avid/M-Audio Fasttrack is dead-in-the-water in Win10 - no drivers. Speaking of M-Audio, it will be a cold day in hell before I buy an M-Audio product again (told you this was going to be a rant). I've been through an old M-Audio controller keyboard (was a bright yellow thing) with the worst clacky-keys I had ever played. I have an M-Audio Venom! Yes folks, I am one of those people that I picked it up sight-unseen for an extremely low price - can't beat $120 for a boxed synth, right? Well I had to drag out my old WinXP laptop in order to edit it because it is severely crippled without software ... oh, and the product and everything surrounding it is discontinued. Really awesome synth once you start programming and saving over the worst set of presets on the planet. But yet another M-Audio product that lost support. I have a M-Audio 2x4 MidiSport - no drivers for Win10 so again dead-in the water. Yes I get it, M-Audio is not the only common theme here, Win10 is :)

I have searched the forums and checked out all the products ... "so much of confusing"!

So now I'm looking for a new Audio interface for my PC that won't break the bank. I would have been able to afford it if I could get anything for these M-Audio goodies, but alas with no Win10 support they will be worth about $20 each if I'm lucky.

Here's what I'm looking for ...
External Audio interface that will allow Vocal recording as well as external synth recording (yes, I have a bunch of hardware synths).
Something that is from a company with a good track record for supporting their products to the absolute death (I mean years and multiple OS's, not months and Mac only).
Does not have to be top-notch quality, as long as it works well and gives low latency. I'm not expecting a better signal path than anything beyond circa 1985, seriously. It's not like I make my living with music.

Would appreciate any feedback, and thanks for listening to the ranting ;).
 
So you're looking for a Windows 10 compatible interface - how many inputs? How many outputs (in case you want to feed crazy stuff to the audio inputs on your synths etc)?

Any preference for USB/Thunderbolt/Firewire?

"Won't break the bank" is quite vauge, what's the actual budget?
 
Anything with a simple knob to control the input/playback balance has an all analog true zero latency input monitoring path. Anything with DSP has some latency, claims otherwise notwithstanding, though it may be very low.
 
Thanks for the response guys, I decided to hold off on this for a while, although the Focusrite Scarlett looked like a pretty good budget buy.
 
Again, sorry for the n00b questions. Would something like the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 "replace" a soundcard - I've always used a soundcard so just not sure how this works.

ie. Once I have the Scarlett installed, would my audio output come from the Scarlett outputs?
 
Yes, the 2i2 will replace your soundcard. Yes, the audio outs will go through the 2i2. If you can afford the price difference, I'd recommend going with the 2i4. It has a 'blend' knob to balance between recorded channel with the playback channel, like BSG mentioned. That will give you your zero latency monitoring.

The 2i2 will do it, but you have to set the playback channel in your software which is something I don't like doing.
 
There is one stand out interface around sub £200 for very low latency, deff' W10 friendly (got one and "it" just bloody works!) VERY stable drivers/operation and, as it happens, first class converter quality. That AI is the Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6.

Seriously you will not get lower latency unless you pay £1000 for RME kit or go Ethernet, still pricey.

The Lower end of the Focusrite range are not noted for very low latency tho' I dare say they are low enough for most people's usage. The 2i2 and 2i4 in particular do not seem very good value for money IMHO when stacked against the KA6 and the Steinberg UR22, the latter being excellent by all accounts tho' I doubt it comes close to the KA6 for low latency.

I can only give £ pricings and we get shafted. The $ costs will be lower in real terms.

Dave.
 
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