Tascam US-16X08 latency and lagging

I'll also try to replicate your problem later when I can fire up the system. I'll go basic, just record a drum track for a few minutes, then I'll play that track back and record it 8 times, so I can actually track the latency across all 8 mics. That should show any delays very quickly. A few minutes should be sufficient.

Are you actually downloading the trial version of Mixcraft to test? Props to you man!

I would do it but my internet PC is about out of storage ability. Time to get a new drive.
 
I'm going to do this with Reaper first. That's the system I've got set up. That should tell me if there is anything inherent with the Tascam (which at this point I've never heard happen on any thing I've recorded).

...And the results are in.

I lined up the mics about 16 inches in front of the monitor, put in a 3 minute midi track of a hihat only on the start of each beat. At the start of the recording, the first part of the wave form was .001 seconds behind the beat. This is logical, as sound goes about 1 ft/ms. There should be a delay of .001 seconds. After 3:21, the delay was exactly the same, .001 seconds.
Attached are screen shots of the times. I captured the selection area at the top.

I even had to do this a couple of times, just to make sure that the levels were up there and that everything was working.

I am using V4 of the Tascam software and had 64bit buffers at 88K /24 bit. One thing that is a bit wonky with the Tascam driver is that it will follow the DAW when you set it up, but when you go out of the software, it will switch back to 96K on the screen. If you just make the windows smaller so that the DAW stays active, then you can see what the real rate is. Don't know if Mixcraft does this, but when you go out of the Reaper window, it "closes" the audio device.

Hope this info is helpful.
 

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So I have installed Reaper. In my opinion,
The Mixcraft system is much easier to navigate and very user friendly compared.

But I the program itself seems to be interacting better. I have a slight bit of overall latency but the recorded tracks seem to be fine when playing all together.

I haven't really done anything different with the mixcraft program. I installed them both as the 64 bit version, and changed the preference settings to match the tascam interface.

Although Mixcraft does a better job of pulling the information directly from it, Reaper I had to change it all manually. Information was still the same.

So I am not sure what the difference is,
But it is clearly how my DAW is interacting with it.
So unless someone is using both, it would be hard to help.

I send in a help request with Mixcraft providing them my txt log and they are going to look and see if they can see what is going on.

***Potentially maybe figured something out?***
the device setting in my preferences match what the Tascam Interface is saying:

Sample Rate: 44100
Buffer Size: 128
Latency Delay in mls: 2.9

But at the bottom of my window when recording,
It is saying the following:

44100 hz, 32 Bits, 5.8 mls

As well, now that I left the system running for longer,
I am now getting latency during recording playback as well. Like I have my guitar plugged directly into it,
So the latency is a whole "strum off" if I hit a cord, it does not register right away.
 
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I am watching the setup for Mixcraft, and they recommend using Core Audio. Have you done that or are you using the ASIO driver? Also, you will find lower latency with higher bit rates. its the nature of USB. Its a burst mode system, as opposed to a streaming mode like Firewire or Thunderbolt. That's why you buffer the data. When the computer polls the system, the interface will dump the data down.

If your buffer size is 256 and your sampling rate is 44,100 times per second (Hz means cycles per second) then your latency will be (256/44,100) seconds which is 0.0058 seconds or 5.8ms. Obviously if you double the sample rate, the latency drops by half. However this is one way. If you are monitoring, you will double that, plus you have overhead in your computer, so you might see a slightly higher latency for full round trip. Thats also why lots of interfaces have a "Zero latency" option, where the audio is rerouted directly to the output, to eliminate that round trip.

The thing that concerns me is that you are getting drift. That's not normal behavior. That suggests a possible bit rate issue. I might try downloading the Mixcraft demo and try that.
 
I am watching the setup for Mixcraft, and they recommend using Core Audio. Have you done that or are you using the ASIO driver? Also, you will find lower latency with higher bit rates. its the nature of USB. Its a burst mode system, as opposed to a streaming mode like Firewire or Thunderbolt. That's why you buffer the data. When the computer polls the system, the interface will dump the data down.

If your buffer size is 256 and your sampling rate is 44,100 times per second (Hz means cycles per second) then your latency will be (256/44,100) seconds which is 0.0058 seconds or 5.8ms. Obviously if you double the sample rate, the latency drops by half. However this is one way. If you are monitoring, you will double that, plus you have overhead in your computer, so you might see a slightly higher latency for full round trip. Thats also why lots of interfaces have a "Zero latency" option, where the audio is rerouted directly to the output, to eliminate that round trip.

The thing that concerns me is that you are getting drift. That's not normal behavior. That suggests a possible bit rate issue. I might try downloading the Mixcraft demo and try that.

I am using the ASIO function in conjunction with the Tascam.

Drift might be a better way to describe it.
Like I said, It worked in Reaper, played around with it for an hour and did not lose any momentum (really not a fan of that interface though)

Switched back to Mixcraft, and it just kept doing the same as it has been doing.

First track is fine, but the longer I spend recording, the further each new track gets from being in synch.
 
OK, I went ahead and downloaded Mixcraft. I set it up as shown in the attached screen capture.

Using the metronome feature, I recorded about 30 seconds of audio from my headphone to the mic. I even used the full system, rather than using the zero latency setup (master1 and 2). After recording the first track, I turned off the metronome, then recorded the click track on 3 more tracks. They all align pretty darn closely. Certainly nothing that would suggest a full beat's drift. You can see the lineup of the 4 clicks. That was as far as I could zoom the screen.

Try setting your interface settings as shown and see if any of that helps.

Other than that, I don't know what else to look at. Sorry.
 

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OK, I went ahead and downloaded Mixcraft. I set it up as shown in the attached screen capture.

Using the metronome feature, I recorded about 30 seconds of audio from my headphone to the mic. I even used the full system, rather than using the zero latency setup (master1 and 2). After recording the first track, I turned off the metronome, then recorded the click track on 3 more tracks. They all align pretty darn closely. Certainly nothing that would suggest a full beat's drift. You can see the lineup of the 4 clicks. That was as far as I could zoom the screen.

Try setting your interface settings as shown and see if any of that helps.

Other than that, I don't know what else to look at. Sorry.

So I tried doing the settings the way you said.
At first, it worked like a charm, even the metronome was no longer clicky sounding.
Record 4 takes and they all worked well.

So my next test, I went to go eat food and left it on, went to go record and it sounded like a slowed down distorted 8-bit sound when trying to record
And playback.
 
Josh, I'm afraid that sounds like a software issue. In two years, I've never had anything approaching what you describe, using Reaper and the Tascam. I've spent a few hours recording, deleting and rerecording without any changes in speed.

Ufortunately, I've already uninstalled Mixcraft. I've gotten really used to Reaper, know where most of the functions are that I use regularly, so I don't see a reason to change.

One thought, did your system go into sleep mode while you were away? I have the power settings on my desktop so that it won't go into sleep mode for 4 hours. I've seen some things get screwy when a system comes out of sleep mode and doesn't actually restore the way it should. We had instrumentation at work that wouldn't reconnect on wake-up. We had to close the program and relaunch it to reconnect. In the end, we turned powersaving off. Too many people would walk away after using the instrument, and then come back to find things screwed up.
 
Josh, I'm afraid that sounds like a software issue. In two years, I've never had anything approaching what you describe, using Reaper and the Tascam. I've spent a few hours recording, deleting and rerecording without any changes in speed.

Ufortunately, I've already uninstalled Mixcraft. I've gotten really used to Reaper, know where most of the functions are that I use regularly, so I don't see a reason to change.

One thought, did your system go into sleep mode while you were away? I have the power settings on my desktop so that it won't go into sleep mode for 4 hours. I've seen some things get screwy when a system comes out of sleep mode and doesn't actually restore the way it should. We had instrumentation at work that wouldn't reconnect on wake-up. We had to close the program and relaunch it to reconnect. In the end, we turned powersaving off. Too many people would walk away after using the instrument, and then come back to find things screwed up.

I do appreciate all the help.
Because it worked with Reaper, I am maybe going to try Pro Tools out and see how it works.
I really don't like the Reaper platform, as I am comfortable with Mixcraft, to which pro tools is similar.

If it does not work with Pro Tools,
I am just going to return it and try another option and hope it is a bit more compatible with my platform.

Thanks once again, the amount of effort has been incredible to help.
 
I would pull down Pro Tools First and give that a good workout before dropping any cash. Its limited in the number of tracks, but making sure it is compatible with your system is what you need to test. From what I understand, ProTools can be pretty CPU heavy. I haven't used it in years, so someone else might be able to comment better.

You might also look at Cakewalk by Bandlab. Its basically the full Sonar program. Its a freeby, so there's no penalty to try it, just a download.

If you do go with the Focusrite, and it works with Mixcraft, make sure to let us know. These are the types of issues that are sometimes hard to pin down. There are so many variations in recording systems that its impossible to try all permutations.
 
Don't even try Protools man. That is a trail you need not follow. You started with the most simple software and it does not work. Trying to go to the most complicated one doesn't make any sense.

I use Cubase, and it is almost as complicated as Protools. Only it actually works for me.

Stick with Reaper or whatever is better than the shit you had that does not work. Stop wasting your own time man, and use a real DAW that doesn't cause you issues. Spend your time creating, not resolving issues.
 
From what I have read in some reviews, there are a lot of elements of Mixcraft that resemble Sonar. Since Cakewalk is based on Sonar, it seems like that would be a logical place to start in terms of user interface. Plus the price is pretty decent ($0).
 
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