can you recommend a good cheap low latency board/box

[mhog]

As you earlier said, you didn't even know it existed until my post

Ok, I was lying haha! I must confess I knew 32 bit exists, but it's like aliens: it is very likely they exist (considering the size of the universe), yet I don't need a spacecraft to do the same things I can do with a town car and with better results in terms of economy and comfort. I call it "Down to Earth living" or smth. That's why I won't waste space for useless huge 32bit audio files, when 99,9% of audio equipments (cd players, car radios, whatever) still play 16bit 44.100 or even less (mp3), giving the same results. I usually do like this: my songs are saved in "projects" (Logic and/or Live). When I want to listen to them in my car, stereo etc. I "render" (= create an audio file) them in 16bit 44.100khz. Not only this is more than enough to my ears, I often convert them into mp3, since it's a very comfortable format. And, again, I still don't hear any difference at all. The rest (32bit) is (useless, redundant) sci-fi for now (like aliens: see above)

[mhog]

If you are rendering your track to file from Live I recomend you to choose 32 Bit on export if you are going to master it further or send to a Mastering Engineer. The dithering are designed to be the last process, and if possible be avoided til then.

Actually, if I needed a Mastering Engineer, I wouldn't send him any audio tracks made in my small room, I'd go directly into his thousand dollars studio and record instruments and voices there. Otherwise everyone here is a Mastering Engineer, thanks to the nototious "RTFM" law

Ohh I so whish you were just trolling me.... you seriously think that a professional Mastering Engineer's studio is the same as a Recording Studio..that's soooo adorable.

Here (Planet Earth) it works like this: I compose some songs on a music paper and write some lyrics that my singer sings for me. Sometimes I strum the guitar, too. I record a demo in my room, in LogicPro. Then we both (my singer and I) go into a Professional Studio, together with my instruments, Logic projects and synths, and record our songs. There's a room with some kind of egg boxes like on the walls, rather silent. In another adjoining room, separated by glass, there's a man (usually the Studio owner, sometimes his colleague) who moves faders and pushes buttons on a big mixer while we are playing our music. Etc. Etc. They put everything in Protools and in the end they give us a mastered CD (16bit 44.100khz)

[mhog]

*You* may not hear a 10ms latency, but some people can.

[Kr3eM]

As you earlier said, you didn't even know it existed until my post

Ok, I was lying haha! I must confess I knew 32 bit exists, but it's like aliens: it is very likely they exist (considering the size of the universe), yet I don't need a spacecraft to do the same things I can do with a town car and with better results in terms of economy and comfort. That's why i won't waste space for useless huge 32bit audio files, when 99,9% of audio equipments (cd players, car radios, whatever) still play 16bit 44.100 or even less (mp3). I usually do like this: my songs are saved in "projects" (Logic and/or Live). When I want to listen to them in my car, stereo etc. I "render" (= create an audio file) them in 16bit 44.100khz. Not only this is way more than enough for my ears, I often convert them in mp3, since it's an even more comfortable format. The rest (32bit) is sci-fi for now (like aliens: see above)

Well either way, you sure have demostrated that you have no understanding of 32 bit (float) and it's function and while doing so exposed your overall lack of knowledge. You are doing the same as most people are doing today when they are confronted with facts, mainly refering to their own opinons. Your opinions have nothing to do with the facts how things work.

I could care less of your lack of understanding and descerment in general, but when you state wrong facts and spread your ignorance on a forum which most people are using as a source for expand their knowledge and understanding of things I do care. Also don't flatter yourself and believe that my efforts are for you, it's for the benefit of those who want to learn and understand and since you turned out not be one of those none of my efforts are for you.

Your statement could very easy confuse and make a beginner believe that he/she could only render his/her master file to a 16 bit wav just because the soundcard have 16 bit specification. This is wrong, and that may not bother you but other user may have the desire to improve and develop their skills and descerment regarding quality amongst other things.

So if you have no intention of learning you shouldn't be 'teaching' others.


...

[mhog]

I actually guess the real difference is between musicians (they play music and listen to music) and geeky perfectionists (they read the manual, are excited by technical aspects, frequencies, much less in music). Now, the thread opener is a musician, he claimed he does not understand (read: "not interested in") technical aspects, he just wants to play his music and asks for some suggestion in order to buy a good cheap audio interface. He even posts a $60 Behringer audio interface, as a suggestion/term of comparison/budget. Now, we have three cases:

(1) an RME sort of fanboy who suggests him to buy a second hand $1,000 professional interface, "because";
(2) an ultraexpert Live user who seems to touch heaven with 32bit and such abstruse concepts and derails the topic into a "RTFM" pseudonerdish "I have a mission" war, while the guy just asked for a cheap audio interface;
(3) a musician who suggests him to focus on his music and spare money, because an $ 80-100 24bit/192Khz audio interface is more than enough for his MUSICAL needs.

Now, guess who's out of topic...

[t3toooo]

I think it is important to only list a interface that is/was in use by someone.Choosing randomly by images and features doesn't tell the whole story.
Another point beside latency is how robust the driver works.My Yamaha manage to (visually) sky scrape all four cores in the task manager without crackles,it's also way lighter than Asio4All.That's why the Steinberg UR range got a lot success.
Better interfaces are also (USB 2- 24 bit) class compliant.Because of that hey are usable on any platform even without installing a driver (just in case the official support would stop they are still usable).

[Kr3eM]

I actually guess the real difference is between musicians (they play music and listen to music) and geeky perfectionists (they read the manual, are excited by technical aspects, frequencies, much less in music). Now, the thread opener is a musician, infact he claimed he does not understand techincal aspects, he just wants to play his music and asks for some suggestion in order to buy a good cheap audio interface. He even posts a $60 Behringer audio interface, as a suggestion. Now, we have three cases:

(1) an RME sort of fanboy who suggests him to buy a second hand $1,000 professional interface.
(2) an ultraexpert Live user who seems to touch heaven with 32bit and such abstruse concepts and derails the topic into a "RTFM" pseudonerdish war, while the guy just asked for a cheap audio interface.
(3) a musician who suggests him to focus on his music and spare money, because an $ 80-100 audio interface is more than enough for his MUSICAL needs.

Now, guess who's out of topic...

So now we are getting to the realm of personal insults, thats on topic, sure.

YOU made an argument to not buy the U-Phoria UMC22 USB to the OP based on the argument that it was 16 Bit and if he used sample players and he wanted to render music from StudioOne into audio file he should go for a 24 Bit.

YOU started all of this buy using an argument based on incorrect facts as a reason to not by a 16 Bit soundcard. All my post is nothing but a consequence of your claims being wrong and thereby being completly on topic.

Searching on google I came across the Behringer U-Phoria UMC22 USB Audio Interface

Does it replace using my motherboard for audio processing?

Or am I completely wrong?

Good cheap Audio Interface, but as far as I know it is 16 bit only. In case you play sample players (Kontakt) and/or want to render your music from StudioOne into audio file, CD, mp3 etc. I would go 24 bit if i were you.

[t3toooo]

Regarding Behringer,there is also the dirt cheap UMC202HD,i've read a very good reviews about the driver.

Hey folks come back to topic!

[Kr3eM]

I think it is important to only list a interface that is/was in use by someone.Choosing randomly by images and features doesn't tell the whole story.
Another point beside latency is how robust the driver works.My Yamaha manage to (visually) sky scrape all four cores in the task manager without crackles,it's also way lighter than Asio4All.That's why the Steinberg UR range got a lot success.
Better interfaces are also (USB 2- 24 bit) class compliant.Because of that hey are usable on any platform even without installing a driver (just in case the official support would stop they are still usable).

The ideal is to have a recomendation from someone with the same computer spec, i.e. motherboard, cpu and so on. It's not only a question how well the driver works by itself but also how well it works with the rest of the hardware.

[t3toooo]

The ideal is to have a recomendation from someone with the same computer spec, i.e. motherboard, cpu and so on. It's not only a question how well the driver works by itself but also how well it works with the rest of the hardware.

Yes this would be ideal,since this isn't going to happen i naturally discard a interface if i read a couple of reviews containing the word "crackles" ,at least for my workhorse DAW.

[mhog]

I actually guess the real difference is between musicians (they play music and listen to music) and geeky perfectionists (they read the manual, are excited by technical aspects, frequencies, much less in music). Now, the thread opener is a musician, he claimed he does not understand (read: "not interested in") technical aspects, he just wants to play his music and asks for some suggestion in order to buy a good cheap audio interface. He even posts a $60 Behringer audio interface, as a suggestion/term of comparison/budget. Now, we have three cases:

(1) an RME sort of fanboy who suggests him to buy a second hand $1,000 professional interface "because";
(2) an ultraexpert Live user who seems to touch heaven with 32bit and such abstruse concepts and derails the topic into a "RTFM" pseudonerdish "I have a mission" war, while the guy just asked for a cheap audio interface.
(3) a musician who suggests him to focus on his music and spare money, because an $ 80-100 24bit/192Khz audio interface is more than enough for his MUSICAL needs.

Now, guess who's out of topic...

So now we are getting to the realm of personal insults, thats on topic, sure.

YOU made an argument to not buy the U-Phoria UMC22 USB to the OP based on the argument that it was 16 Bit and if he used sample players and he wanted to render music from StudioOne into audio file he should go for a 24 Bit.

YOU started all of this buy using an argument based on incorrect facts as a reason to not by a 16 Bit soundcard. All my post is nothing but a consequence of your claims being wrong and thereby being completly on topic.

Searching on google I came across the Behringer U-Phoria UMC22 USB Audio Interface

Does it replace using my motherboard for audio processing?

Or am I completely wrong?

Good cheap Audio Interface, but as far as I know it is 16 bit only. In case you play sample players (Kontakt) and/or want to render your music from StudioOne into audio file, CD, mp3 etc. I would go 24 bit if i were you.

I forgot "drama queen"
I thought with 24bit samples in tracks a 24 bit/192khz audio interface was necessar (meaning: better than a 16bit one) while dithering (rendering... whatever). If it isn't, because even an old 12 bit audio interface can do that, with no difference at all, thanks to the 32 DAW whatever internal software architecture, well... Problem solved and I would go with the little 16 bit Behringer, which is even cheaper than similar products.

[kevvvvv]

Plenty of useful advice in this thread. And I thought it'd be a non-starter a couple of days ago.

Will take 1/2 hour (at least) to plough through, and then google all the options, and hopefully figure out what's best for my setup and my simple needs.

Thanks to all contributors

[chk071]

Very stupid question (and potentially already answered in this thread...), i know, but, do USB interfaces always have a higher latency than, say, PCI, or PCIe stuff?

[Dominus]

Very stupid question (and potentially already answered in this thread...), i know, but, do USB interfaces always have a higher latency than, say, PCI, or PCIe stuff?

The real answer is "it depends".

It depends on how it's implemented. RME's USB implementation will almost always outperform the competition's USB implementation, and occasionally will outperform PCIe and Firewire interfaces. Check out that GS link I posted earlier. The Babyface beats out Presonus, M-Audio, and some MOTU firewire interfaces, and some ESI PCIe cards.

The Babyface yields 4.9ms total round-trip latency at a 48-sample ASIO buffer size/44.1k... whereas the OctaCapture yields 7.2ms total round-trip latency at those same settings.

[kevvvvv]

All of these boxes are cheap and 24 bit

https://www.musicmatter.co.uk/lists/bes ... -under-100

1. Focusrite Scarlett 2i2

2. M-Audio M-Track Plus MK2

3. Steinberg UR22 MK2

4. Presonus Audiobox USB

5. Roland Tri Capture

I'm a Studio One user so the Presonus offering is the most tempting.

It had these reviews on amazon

https://www.amazon.com/PreSonus-AudioBo ... B00154KSA2

I've learned a helluva lot from this thread, about a "forgotten" subject. V instructive.

KVR wins every time