KVR Audio

bemushroomed · Post by **bemushroomed** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 12:03 pm

Priority is:

Stable drivers (i use Cubase 7 on Windows 7 x64, if that matters)
Lowest latency possible for playing VSTI's.

If there's a card with phantom power amp (which also sounds good) that would be great.

I'm gonna connect maybe 2-3 hardware synths to it, but when i think of it maybe that will require a mixer (been a while since i made music)?

Currently i have a ESI Juli@ which i've had for 8-10 years or something, it works but latency isnt the best (in 11ms-range when set to "512 sample"). I'm sure it must have happened a lot since this card was considered good/decent.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

MickGael · Post by **MickGael** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 12:59 pm

Someone is sure to ask, so I might as well be the first: what is your budget?

thecontrolcentre · Post by **thecontrolcentre** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 1:03 pm

The new one from Tascam looks nice. 16 ins 8 outs might be overkill for your needs, but at $299 seems pretty reasonable.

http://tascam.com/product/us-16x08/

tehlord · Post by **tehlord** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 1:43 pm

MickGael wrote:Someone is sure to ask, so I might as well be the first: what is your budget?

Exactly

Without budget it's impossible to recommend anything as the range of prices is $100-3000

Firewire/USB/Thunderbolt?

How many inputs do you actually need, and how many of them need phantom power?

ZenPunkHippy · Post by **ZenPunkHippy** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 1:46 pm

tehlord wrote:Without budget it's impossible to recommend anything as the range of prices is $100-3000

What, is this the low end forum now?

*edit - oops, wrong site

bemushroomed · Post by **bemushroomed** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 2:03 pm

Yeah sorry, budget up to $300. The more inputs the better i guess, i just need one input with phantom power. I also need midi and digital out.

I guess it would be optimal if it's not just a audio interface but a soundcard as well, i've never used anything else than SoundBlaster and my ESI Juli@ so i'm cluless how these audio interfaces works, if they work as soundcards as well.. USB or internal (PCI-E).

tehlord · Post by **tehlord** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 2:59 pm

ZenPunkHippy wrote:
tehlord wrote:Without budget it's impossible to recommend anything as the range of prices is $100-3000
What, is this the low end forum now?

*edit - oops, wrong site

Didn't want to scare the lad

bemushroomed wrote:Yeah sorry, budget up to $300. The more inputs the better i guess, i just need one input with phantom power. I also need midi and digital out.

I guess it would be optimal if it's not just a audio interface but a soundcard as well, i've never used anything else than SoundBlaster and my ESI Juli@ so i'm cluless how these audio interfaces works, if they work as soundcards as well.. USB or internal (PCI-E).

Your audio interface will also work as your Windows sound card if you so choose.

For that money the best option is the Steinberg UR22 or UR44 (different amount of inputs and the 44 has dual headphone outs)

I have the UR22 here as a secondary card and it's fantastic. Well built, solid drivers and sounds great.

Not quite sure why you need digital out?

chroma · Post by **chroma** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 3:12 pm

thecontrolcentre wrote:The new one from Tascam looks nice. 16 ins 8 outs might be overkill for your needs, but at $299 seems pretty reasonable.

http://tascam.com/product/us-16x08/

what's the latency like on the tascams in general? driver stability?

if you need digital, you want the us-1800 instead. those can be had even cheaper.

arkmabat · Post by **arkmabat** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 3:28 pm

Ur22 / ur44

fese · Post by **fese** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 3:41 pm

bemushroomed wrote:Priority is:

Stable drivers (i use Cubase 7 on Windows 7 x64, if that matters)
Lowest latency possible for playing VSTI's.

If there's a card with phantom power amp (which also sounds good) that would be great.

I'm gonna connect maybe 2-3 hardware synths to it, but when i think of it maybe that will require a mixer (been a while since i made music)?

Currently i have a ESI Juli@ which i've had for 8-10 years or something, it works but latency isnt the best (in 11ms-range when set to "512 sample"). I'm sure it must have happened a lot since this card was considered good/decent.
..

Is that 11ms the input latency? That doesn't seem too bad in my eyes, at 512 samples my Cubase shows 12.2ms input latency for my RME interface (USB2), and those are generally considered the USB interfaces with the best performance. The Juli@ is an PCI(e) card, right? Rule of thumb: PCIe cards perform better than USB interfaces (see http://www.dawbench.com/audio-int-lowlatency3.htm).
Have you tried setting the latency to 256 or 128ms?

EDIT: just a quick calculation: 1000ms / 44100 * 512 = 11.61ms. If you set your buffer to 512 samples, you cannot get faster than that. A new interface won't help you there.

chroma · Post by **chroma** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 3:50 pm

i love the ur22 (have one myself) but if you have hw synths, you're really better off paying a little more and having dedicated inputs per synth. the ur44 might be big enough, but neither of them have digital out.

i had a presonus 1818vsl, great sound most of the time and has everything you're talking about, you could probably get one close to your range used (i got a refurb for not much above that), but the drivers weren't great (dropouts would come and go). and the latency was higher than i can do with the yamaha.

the focusrite stuff is well regarded soundwise, but latency is usually higher afaik.

the native instruments stuff is also well regarded, but only 4x6 - not enough inputs iirc.

there are some good steinberg/yamaha (like the ur816) and roland (octacapture) but they are about twice your desired price range.

if you can run firewire, maybe an older motu? you can probably find a traveler in your price range... never used one personally but at least driver stability is supposedly good, latency reasonably low, should sound OK... was seriously looking at an ultralite when i got the vsl, still will probably pick one up eventually unless there's something better out there in the range...

fese · Post by **fese** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 4:16 pm

chroma wrote: i had a presonus 1818vsl, great sound most of the time and has everything you're talking about, you could probably get one close to your range used (i got a refurb for not much above that), but the drivers weren't great (dropouts would come and go). and the latency was higher than i can do with the yamaha.

Oh, so it wasn't only me? I bought a 44VSL once and also experienced dropouts all the way. Also, the headphone jacks were on the back which is really stupid. Had to send it back.

@bemushroomed: if you still want a new interface with more i/o but still good performance, also consider a used PCIe interface like ESI ESP1010e, but only if you plan to stay on Win7 (or WIn8) as long as possible.

bemushroomed · Post by **bemushroomed** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 6:03 pm

fese: oh, so even the newer cards doesnt handle lower values (like 256 or 128 samples) either? I mean it's been like 8 years, my computer is probably 10 times faster than what i had back then. I really expected it to have changed by now lol

I think i will go with a ur44, i bet that card has great support with cubase too since it's from the same company.

Digital out would be nice but i guess i can leave the old card in for that (i only use the digital out to my home cinema setup).

Thanks for the help everyone

Feel free to give more suggestions or if you know of any cons with the ur44

fese · Post by **fese** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 7:21 pm

bemushroomed wrote:fese: oh, so even the newer cards doesnt handle lower values (like 256 or 128 samples) either? I mean it's been like 8 years, my computer is probably 10 times faster than what i had back then. I really expected it to have changed by now lol

Oh, did you mean you cannot set the Juli@ to a buffer less than 512 samples? If that is really the case, i can understand you, that is too high. But I cannot really believe that, I had an ESP1010 card (same vendor, ESI) for several years, similarly old, and i could use it without any problem at 256 samples. I'd check the settings in the driver control panel again.

Most Interfaces nowadays can go down to 64 or even 32 samples buffer, but how good that works depends on the bus (PCIe/USB/Firewire), the driver quality and of course your project (how many tracks/VST(i)s).
USB interfaces always add extra buffers compared to PCIe, so it is possible that the UR44 interface at 256 samples won't be much faster (in ms) than your Juli@ at 512 samples buffer size.

Apart from that, I don't want to stop you from buying a new interface

, just another tip: most interfaces look good on paper but if you really use them, they're either not that great or just don't fit into your setup (see my experience with the Presonus), so if it is possible buy somewhere where you can return the interface or even better, buy two (say the UR44 and the NI Komplete Audio 6 which is even cheaper), test them and return the one you like less.

bemushroomed · Post by **bemushroomed** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 8:07 pm

I can set it to 256 or 128 but there will be audio drop outs when using VSTI's. Yeah it would be good if i could return it after trying, i'll look around. Thanks again

New Audio interface, which one?