Focusrite in combination with external soundcard

manuelvdn

New member
I use a Focusrite 18i8 to make some home recording onto my DAW.
After fiddling around with buffer size, bit depth and sample rate up to the point where I had the least latency and still could record without cracks and pops. I still have a little too much latency to make recording as comfortable as I wish.

I heard if you improve your soundcard that latency might not be (a big) issue anymore. But doesn't Focusrite has it's own internal soundcard? Otherwise I'd just buy an external RME Soundcard, but I don't know if they work well together?

So, would it be a good idea to buy an external soundcard or is it no use? And if not what other things could I try to improve to get less latency? Already optimised my pc as much as possible and use it only for recordings.
 
The Focusrite is an external sound card. That's what an audio interface is. It replaces the internal sound of your computer.

You have to make sure that all the audio is going in and out of the Focusrite. If you are using it just for input, but playing back through your computer, you are likely to experience audio problems
 
The Focusrite is an external sound card. That's what an audio interface is. It replaces the internal sound of your computer.

You have to make sure that all the audio is going in and out of the Focusrite. If you are using it just for input, but playing back through your computer, you are likely to experience audio problems

Allright, that's what I thought. When I'm recording I use the headphone output of my Focusrite (as well as the input of course) but then I still have around 24ms of latency. Or do you mean something else?
 
What DAW are you using? What is the latency? Is direct monitoring not an option? (what are you recording?)
 
Latency is largely determined by the interface and especially its drivers. Focusrite maybe don't have a name for THE lowest latency, not RME class say but should be better I think than 24mS?

But, you won't get low latency with even the best AI and drivers if the PC does not have the grunt and that mainly means speed of the CPU. However, PCs of even modest cost now have pretty fast processors (e.g. my 7yr old HP i3) and therefore there is probably something else grabbing CPU resource and causing glitching.

Top culprits are wireless network interfaces. Google for 'Latencymon' and get testing.

Dave.
 
Yeah, 24ms with glitches would not be acceptable for tracking audio tracks.

It may likely be a simple setup issue.
 
What DAW are you using? What is the latency? Is direct monitoring not an option? (what are you recording?)

I mostly use Ardour, but I sometimes record in Ableton as well. Latency issue is happening with both DAWs, so don't think it's something related to the DAW. I mostly program drums and then record audiosignals (being guitars, vocals and bass through mics + I split my guitar signal so I have a clean direct input as well) and sometimes midi-keyboards or midi-drums via an electronic drum. The latency I'm having when my input and output is the focusrite is 23,2 milliseconds. I hope to find a better solution than Direct Monitoring since I like to experiment with plugins on guitar and vocals for example when I'm recording and it's more fun when you hear directly what that sounds like.
 
And also what are your computer specs?

Computer works fine on it oswn, pretty fast on setup and browsing internet and such, and my audio programs work fine as well apart from the latency. Though it's not topnotch for recoding I guess. I don't mind expanding it by buying external stuff to make it better for recording, but I hope that I don't have to buy an entirely new computer since I'm quite happy with it.

Half of my C-drive(118GB) is empty (I only have not finished projects on it, 3 audio software programs and and a Google Chrome browser, so storage-capacity should be fine as well I guess.

Processor: AMD A9 (3.10 GHz)
RAM: 8 GB
 
Computer works fine on it oswn, pretty fast on setup and browsing internet and such, and my audio programs work fine as well apart from the latency. Though it's not topnotch for recoding I guess. I don't mind expanding it by buying external stuff to make it better for recording, but I hope that I don't have to buy an entirely new computer since I'm quite happy with it.

Half of my C-drive(118GB) is empty (I only have not finished projects on it, 3 audio software programs and and a Google Chrome browser, so storage-capacity should be fine as well I guess.

Processor: AMD A9 (3.10 GHz)
RAM: 8 GB

Now, I am NO computer buff but I would have thought that 2 core 3.1G processor well capable of running lots of tracks provided you don't load up many pluggins?

Should have said before, you are running F'rite's ASIO driver? Can I assume that when you reduce buffer size the audio starts to breakup? If so you have something taking up CPU cycles.

Standard advice: Download the latest drivers. Might be advisable to disable (NOT unistall) the internal sound card but that is rarely a problem these days. I run Ccleaner registry cleaner about once a month. Some folks don't like doing that but in 10 odd years of 'puting I have only ever had good results. In any case, set a restore point BEFORE you start diggin !

I have had perfectly usable latency with an 800MhZ processor! MIDI data in, sounds out.

Last of all I see that AMD chip can be configure to draw between 15 to 25W. Could be something is throttling it. Does it run hot?

Dave.
 
I'm wondering why the OP is not using Direct Monitoring, which the Focusrite offers. I should know, as I have two 18i20's. He didn't mention what DAW he's using, but latency shouldn't be an issue if he's using the Focusrite to monitor with, and it sounds like he is. I run the buffers at 1024--anything lower and Samplitude starts hitching. But there is no latency detectable via the Focusrite Control app, which also has great routing capabilities. What I do occasionally get with Samp/18i20 is recording lag time while recording multitrack drums. The drums will be behind and I have to manually get them lined up with the rest of the already recorded song. I wonder sometimes if they're behind in samples according to the buffer size, but I never checked. It's really annoying, especially while recording with someone else. The Focusrite was notorious for it's driver issues, but it's very reliable, and sounds good.
 
Are you using Focusrite's Focusrite Control mixer app?

OP has said he wants to use pluggins to give real time FX. What he has not told us is if the sound starts to crackup if he reduces buffer size? If so he needs to investigate why. IMHO a 2 core 3.1 AMD should be easily capable of sub 10mS so long as he is using minimal fx? Just a bit of guitar OD. Reverb is nice but eats resource.

Tim, which version of Samplitude do you have?
Dave.
 
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