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Old 09-29-2016, 11:01 PM   #41
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Originally Posted by karbomusic View Post
How did this turn out? I'm considering picking one up so I can mic the rehearsal room up permanently - aka to create semi-live/semi-studio recordings and micing all the instruments. That's it's only purpose, live recording the band at rehearsal.
Except for one hickup that went very well. The X32 did what it should do and using it is easier than most other digital mixers, except the Roland, that has fewer possibilities. And the one hickup didn't have anything to do with the X32, but was the new subs blowing a fuse...
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Old 09-30-2016, 10:43 PM   #42
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I feel like, as usual, this thread has been derailed and instead of getting advice pertaining to my specific needs I will now just be told why those needs are wrong. This always seems to happen on reaper forums. Oh well, here we go again...
Dude, you're taking this too personally. You asked for advice and insight into the issue, and I'm doing my best to give it to you. The decision is yours. It's your money. Get whatever you like. I'm not trying to change your needs. You specified what you want to do, and I'm explaining what I believe to be the best way to meet those needs and why.

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I have been through 9 laptops in the last few years, using both USB and Firewire interfaces from Focusrite, M-Audio, Roland, Tascam and more. It was a nightmare I never want to relive. I have used a Macbook Pro, a Sony VAIO, a Toshiba, a HP, 3 ASUS, an Acer and an MSI, all ranging in price from 2500 to 3500 dollars. The MSI was what I settled on, because it was the best of the bunch, but still not stellar by any means.
None of those interfaces make the list of recommended purchases. It's been RME and MOTU for as long as I can remember for low latency performance over usb or firewire.

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Your claims that a laptop running an interface via USB/Firewire could get the same performance, stability and plugin counts as a PCIe RME card are terribly unrealistic.

The bottom line is the constraints of building for the tiny spaces of a laptop chassis severely limit the options. Corners are inevitably cut, and performance, stability, cooling, things like that, always suffer. God even the power supplies suck compared to PCs.
Well, I must be staring at a unicorn, and mistaking it for the laptop on my desk. If you really do need more CPU grunt than can be contained in a small case, then sure, desktop PC it is, but I'd love to see the live session that the higher end mobile i7's couldn't handle.

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On top of that, you mentioned issues with certain chips, GPUs etc - well thats another reason I will never touch a laptop - the options for a ground up custom build for laptops are almost non-existent or cost an absolute fortune compared to PCs, so even if I find a laptop with a well known stable GPU, it might have one of the known shitty WiFi chips, or a dodgy USB chip, or something else. I have opened up enough laptops to change non-superficial components (eg not just RAM and HDDs) to know that upgrading anything like that is usually next to impossible unless you get a tech to do it. Usually you have to dismantle the entire thing piece by piece cause again due to extremely limited size components are all squashed in and its hard to get to any one without disturbing the other. Sometimes its just not doable.
The trick there is to get a laptop with the right components in the first place.

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On the other hand you can easily custom build a rack PC, and you can do you research and only put the components in it that you know are reliable, and compromise on nothing. Which is exactly what I did.
That's cool. I build many such systems. Building DAW systems, and video editing systems is a large part of what I do for a living. I'm just saying that if you get a laptop with the right parts in the first place, you don't need to change anything.

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The fact Im even debating this here is kind of silly. Its kind of mind blowing to me that someone would honestly be trying to say that a laptop+USB/FW interface combo could be on par with a custom built PC+PCIe... Especially in terms of stability at high plugin counts with a lot of tracks at low latency. RME and other quality PCIe cards are the clear winners in countless benchmarks and reviews.
Well, as the DAWBench page I linked to shows, the RME PCIe interfaces do do slightly better in the number of plugins you can run, but not by much. And the laptop on my desk is proof that it is possible to get one that is stable and reliable for audio work.

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And honestly, if the RAM dies in a laptop or a PC just before a gig, Im screwed either way. But from my own experience, I have had showstopping issues with every single one of the 9 laptops in live AND studio settings. And absolutely ZERO for well over a year now with the rack PC.
I hear what you're saying, and hey, get what you like. I'm just saying that it is definitely possible to get a laptop that will do the job well. Also, I wasn't talking about RAM dying, just needing to be re-seated. The spring clips on laptops help hold the ram in place.

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Look, Ive got the rack PC. I already own it, and it works GREAT. Im not going to go buy a laptop now, and go through the rigmarole of selling my rack, researching all the components on laptops on the market to make sure they will play nice with audio, and spending a bunch of extra money, when I already HAVE something that plays perfectly well and has never given me a single issue.
Cool, it's your money, and you can build a more powerful system that way.

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So...

I am getting the RME RayDAT, plus an 8 channel main pre/AD+DA of some sort, and a Behringer ADA8200 for 8 cheap extra ins/outs. All Im really interested in now is what the best option for the main 8 channel pre is.

Im tossing up between the Zoom UAC-8, the Steinberg UR824, or perhaps trying to find a second hand Presonus Digimax FS. I would appreciate any info or advice on any of these, or suggestions of another product I could use with 8 pres with at least 2 HiZs, 8 line outs, and ADAT AD/DA.

Any advice on this would be appreciated.
There is no doubt that the PCIe interface does give you the most processing capabilities at a given buffer size, but what that means for round trip latency gets more complicated.

https://www.forum.rme-audio.de/viewtopic.php?id=17584

https://www.forum.rme-audio.de/viewtopic.php?id=13071

"No. As can be read elsewhere in this forum running the UCX as stand-alone ADAT converter adds some internal latency (20 to 30 samples, AFAIR). The lowest latency is there when using the UCX directly via USB or FireWire. Or connect a real AD/DA converter (like the ADI-8 DS or QS) to the RayDAT."

"Will depend 100% on the converters you use with the RayDAT. With slower ADAT AD?DA converters and the RayDAT, the UFX will likely be faster..."

So, fast converters with a RayDAT will give you around the same latency, maybe slightly lower than a UCX.

The fun part is getting accurate figures on converter latency to allow you to figure out what to get. The UCX is the usual reference point due to its extremely low latency AD/DA section (which is why I'm mentioning it at all), but you can't get that performance from it using it as an external converter for the RayDAT because it adds 20 or 30 samples to the latency running that way. But I think that the newer RME stand alone mic pre/converters have AD/DA that is a fast as the UCX. Only issue there is I don't think any of them have High Z inputs, so you'd still need a DI box.

If you are looking at other stand alone USB/Firewire interfaces to use as a converter box for the RayDAT, you'll need to ensure that they have low latency converters to start with, and that they maintain that latency performance running as a converter rack.

Hope that helps somewhat. So for latency above all else, RayDAT plus RME converter rack, or if you can find a converter rack with equally low latency from someone else, that also has high Z inputs, then that simplifies your rig a bit.

Last edited by drumphil; 09-30-2016 at 10:59 PM.
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Old 10-01-2016, 01:33 AM   #43
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Originally Posted by matthewjumpsoffbuildings View Post
Ive narrowed it down a lot now, Im definitely getting the RME RayDAT, but Im tossing up between the Steinberg UR824 and the Zoom UAC-8 for the pres/AD/DA

Does anyone have any experience using either of these in standalone mode?
Apologies if this has already been mentioned. There's a thread on latency (link below).

http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=174445

I'm using a Zoom UAC-2, which is the 2 input version of the UAC-8. The interface sounds good to my ear, but I might not be as audiophile as some others on the forum.

I'm getting approximately the same latency figures as reported on that thread which are

Zoom UAC-2 USB3 @ 44.1kHz Win 10
___________________________________

24 3.654ms
32 4.016ms
64 5.468ms
128 8.370ms
256 14.175ms
512 25.785ms
1024 49.005ms

That's using using a USB 3.0 connection on a Windows 10 64 bit PC with an Intel I7 6700K processor.

I tend to use it on the 64spls setting which is good enough and stable on my computer. I did get a couple of glitches at the 24spls setting but I was probably running other stuff at the time and have done nothing to optimise my computer for audio.
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Old 10-02-2016, 04:01 AM   #44
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Originally Posted by stratman
The interface sounds good to my ear, but I might not be as audiophile as some others on the forum.
http://www.head-fi.org/t/800208/the-...l-in-post-2/60

It does ok, but it looks like their analog circuit design could use some work. I mean, you'll still do good recordings with it, but it has odd frequency response issues, and distortion is a bit higher than it should be.

No showstoppers, but not as good as it could have been.
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Old 10-02-2016, 07:17 AM   #45
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http://www.head-fi.org/t/800208/the-...l-in-post-2/60

It does ok, but it looks like their analog circuit design could use some work. I mean, you'll still do good recordings with it, but it has odd frequency response issues, and distortion is a bit higher than it should be.

No showstoppers, but not as good as it could have been.
Thanks for that. I find this stuff really interesting. I've taken a copy of that page in your link. But I'm not sure my old ears are good enough to pick out a 0.5dB hump around 450Hz.
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Old 11-20-2016, 12:19 PM   #46
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Originally Posted by grinder View Post
I would go with sound first, latency whether you are playing with a band or
recording to a click track you are going to have to get used to latency.
Disagree. I have an old EMU 1616PCI and I've been running at 6ms since I got it. Psych books will tell us that the threshold at which the human ear can hear latency is about 10ms. This matches my experience when recording. I can sense it at about 9ms or 10ms, higher than that and I cant play cuz the delay is too strange. I got it down to 6ms and I can play everything without sensing any lag at all.

I would say if you have to get used to latency then you have the wrong interface. Even all the newer budget interfaces are bragging about <10ms latency.
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Old 11-22-2016, 01:09 AM   #47
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cant reccomend this one enough!

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Sig12MT
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Old 01-20-2017, 12:32 PM   #48
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Default Arturia AudioFuse

Anyone have one of these, or heard of someone using it?
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Old 01-20-2017, 07:40 PM   #49
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Disagree. I have an old EMU 1616PCI and I've been running at 6ms since I got it. Psych books will tell us that the threshold at which the human ear can hear latency is about 10ms. This matches my experience when recording. I can sense it at about 9ms or 10ms, higher than that and I cant play cuz the delay is too strange. I got it down to 6ms and I can play everything without sensing any lag at all.

I would say if you have to get used to latency then you have the wrong interface. Even all the newer budget interfaces are bragging about <10ms latency.
Yeah, me too.

I'm a fidelity freak and sensitive to generation loss and all that. But if you're trying to perform and need a live system, any thought of fidelity is completely negated by a train wrecky stumbling performance trying to anticipate the lag. You will have high fidelity tracks of awkward unusable garbage!

If you need a live system (either for MIDI instruments or live fx for mic'd up real instruments), get an interface with lower latency out of the box. Not something right up to the edge that needs a 32 sample buffer to JUST come in under 11ms either. You won't have any system headroom for plugins. Get something that at least comes in at 11ms at a buffer (block size) of 192 samples for example.

Any interface that can support such a latency will at least have a solid level of pro fidelity.

Last edited by serr; 01-20-2017 at 08:06 PM.
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Old 01-20-2017, 07:42 PM   #50
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Psych books will tell us that the threshold at which the human ear can hear latency is about 10ms.
That's about being able to distinguish two discrete events, and that's true, you can't tell them apart as two events below ~10ms, however... it doesn't address feel though, which lives just below that, where you can't hear two distinct sounds but can feel the difference, that's why they call it feel instead of a flam.
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