A Very Sad Story (You will cry)

  • Thread starter Thread starter Newbie-Doo
  • Start date Start date
No bubble bursted here....

Just have experience using firewire interfaces, so I can't really say how USB should perform based on experience.
 
woooooooow

how has no one helped you yet man?

i am able to record tracks on time with no noticeable latency on a built in consumer sound card. just download asio4all and be done with it. explore all your settings and you should be able to get down to a very workable latency no problem.


Adam
 
marshall409 said:
how has no one helped you yet man?

i am able to record tracks on time with no noticeable latency on a built in consumer sound card. just download asio4all and be done with it. explore all your settings and you should be able to get down to a very workable latency no problem.


Adam
Click to expand...

Firewire owns this town and they don't cotton to USB users from the wrong side of the recording tracks. :D

Thanks bro. I will check it out.
 
i agree but...

firewire definitely does own, but when i make the jump to pro gear, unless a major change happens, ill probably go pci. the price:number of tracks ratio is really no comparison. i know thats not the most important thing, but in the price range im talking about, i dont think quality is gonna vary much.

for example, on the cheap:

200 dollars get you 8 in/8 out on a m-audio delta1010lt pci card. minor inconvenience of a pci card and rca breakout cable, but...

200 dollars pretty much gets you jack shit in the world of firewire. maybe a nice 2x2 interface, maybe 4x2 im not really up to date on the newest stuff.

for some reason, firewire interfaces seem to lack alot in terms of OUTS. dont forget about outs, they are important too. alot of people may just see a firewire interface with a ton of inputs, but i dream of a rig that includes a mixer/console and hardware effects sends. i want more outs than ins.

the omega should do you just fine imho. im still struggling by with a crap soundcard, only record one track at a time.

but ya ive heard alot of problems with omega drivers in reviews.

Adam
 
marshall409 said:
firewire definitely does own, but when i make the jump to pro gear, unless a major change happens, ill probably go pci. the price:number of tracks ratio is really no comparison. i know thats not the most important thing, but in the price range im talking about, i dont think quality is gonna vary much.

for example, on the cheap:

200 dollars get you 8 in/8 out on a m-audio delta1010lt pci card. minor inconvenience of a pci card and rca breakout cable, but...

200 dollars pretty much gets you jack shit in the world of firewire. maybe a nice 2x2 interface, maybe 4x2 im not really up to date on the newest stuff.

for some reason, firewire interfaces seem to lack alot in terms of OUTS. dont forget about outs, they are important too. alot of people may just see a firewire interface with a ton of inputs, but i dream of a rig that includes a mixer/console and hardware effects sends. i want more outs than ins.

the omega should do you just fine imho. im still struggling by with a crap soundcard, only record one track at a time.

but ya ive heard alot of problems with omega drivers in reviews.

Adam
Click to expand...

Depending on when you make the jump to pro gear, you might not find much in the way of PCI interfaces. I'd guess audio interface manufacturers won't be making PCI forever as it's dare I say, a dying technology (I still don't feel it's stupid to buy it now, but that "discussion" took place many times here before). I'm in PCI happy-land right now with my Echo Layla 3G and will remain that way until further notice.

While the Delta 1010LT is "cheap", I've tended to stay away from PCI cards with converters on the card itself. I don't think you'll find any budget PCI audio cards that have great noise floors or aren't prone to noise from the internals of a PC box. The Lynx cards I've heard are really quite decent, but I'm talking budget here as it seems you are.

Not all firewire interfaces lack OUTS either. If your making a general statement, you are wrong. If you're talking budget (such as the Delta), then you would be correct. A Echo Audio AudioFire 8 will provide you with 8 balanced outputs, and S/PDIF - which totals 10 outs. We're talking about $250 more then your stated $200 (which to me is a hell of a deal any way you look at it), but it's an example of more outs on a firewire interface.
 
oh ya definitely i know...

400 bucks+ and you can get 10x10 quite easily + good preamps sometimes.

but ya for 200...

Adam
 
Well, all the negative comments on Lexicon has has me spooked. I'm getting static/popping noises and found a review saying they were experiencing this as well. Better return it while I can. :(

Should I start a "Best PC Recording Device under $250" thread? :D
 
People can call bullshit about the USB to firewire latency comparisons all they want. The bottom line is, throughput does not equal latency. Firewire uses a dedicated chip to process the signal, and USB ports depend on the CPU. Because of that USB will always have higher latency when compared to firewire regardless of the potential bandwidth.
 
Yes, I always have an unstable latency between my Alesis and PC even tough I'm using a 2gb ram and 3.2ghz processor.

I'm fed up now and changing to Firewire.

But I have my good times with the USB board. Ofcourse I have no money to buy a new firewire board : [
 
Do none of the USB interfaces have that direct monitoring feature where it routes your input signals straight back through to your outputs without going through the computer? IMO the best way to get zero latency monitoring. Although I can get 3ms of latency monitoring through the computer (RME Multiface), I don't trust it as much as cranking up the buffer size and using direct monitoring.
 
Your latency is also going to be affected by buffer sizes. The lower your recording buffer sizes are, the lower your latency will be. You will have to hunt around your preferences to find the setting, but you usually can set it from 128 samples up to 2048 samples (usually 128, 256, 512, 1024, and 2048). Also, the lower these settings are, the harder recording and playback will hit your CPU. If your settings are too low for your CPU to handle, you will get dropouts, pops, clicks, etc. so experiment.

Ultimately in Pro Tools M-Powered I use 256 samples for recording and 1024 samples during mixing (so I can use lots more plug-ins). That gives me a latency during recording of 4ms, which is pretty good. 10ms isn't bad either though. With my old sound card and SONAR I was running and 12ms and never had a problem.
 
amra said:
People can call bullshit about the USB to firewire latency comparisons all they want. The bottom line is, throughput does not equal latency. Firewire uses a dedicated chip to process the signal, and USB ports depend on the CPU. Because of that USB will always have higher latency when compared to firewire regardless of the potential bandwidth.
Click to expand...

and the fw controller doesn't have to wait for the CPU to service it??? yeah right... that's why they call them interupts...
 
sonnylarsen said:
Your latency is also going to be affected by buffer sizes. The lower your recording buffer sizes are, the lower your latency will be. You will have to hunt around your preferences to find the setting, but you usually can set it from 128 samples up to 2048 samples (usually 128, 256, 512, 1024, and 2048). Also, the lower these settings are, the harder recording and playback will hit your CPU. If your settings are too low for your CPU to handle, you will get dropouts, pops, clicks, etc. so experiment.

Ultimately in Pro Tools M-Powered I use 256 samples for recording and 1024 samples during mixing (so I can use lots more plug-ins). That gives me a latency during recording of 4ms, which is pretty good. 10ms isn't bad either though. With my old sound card and SONAR I was running and 12ms and never had a problem.
Click to expand...

I reinstalled my old Echo Gina 20-bit PCI card and played around with the sample rate. Recording one dry track with the sample rate set to 64 I am able to get the latency down to 1.5ms with no pops or clicks. Guess that settles it. I wanted to move "up" to 24-bit, but the Lexicon is going back and my Gina20-bit is staying in service.
 
Newbie-Doo said:
I reinstalled my old Echo Gina 20-bit PCI card and played around with the sample rate. Recording one dry track with the sample rate set to 64 I am able to get the latency down to 1.5ms with no pops or clicks. Guess that settles it. I wanted to move "up" to 24-bit, but the Lexicon is going back and my Gina20-bit is staying in service.
Click to expand...

If you want to step up a little bit, look for a Gina 24 on eBay. I used to own one and loved it. Nice converters, and I'm sure you'd see the same performance you're seeing with the Gina 20.
 
Last I knew, Firewire does use a little CPU. Certainly not as much overhead as using USB 2.0, but nonetheless, the CPU isn't totally out of the equation.

You can't just look at the numbers for USB 2.0 (480) and Firewire (400), you have to consider overhead. USB simply uses more overhead to transfer the data. A simple search on the net will provide anyone with ample information on USB 2.0 vs Firewire.
 
Newbie-Doo said:
Recording one dry track with the sample rate set to 64 I am able to get the latency down to 1.5ms with no pops or clicks.
Click to expand...
64 would be a buffer size, not a sample rate, Newbie. ;)
 
Yea I think he's confusing sample rate with sample size in the buffer settings.

Although I think very few DAW actually offer 64 bit recording. :confused: I don't see the point, most converters aren't over 24, and some are only 16.

Are there even 32 bit converters? :confused:
 
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