What does it mean when Asio4all is running remarkably better than XR18 with dedicated drivers?

[guild12]

Hi.
I just build a new computer for music production.

Ryzen 3900x
32gb DDR4-3600
Asus b450i
Samsung 970 Eco

Behringer XR18 as an interface.

Before I got the interface I tested things out with Asio4all and the onboard sound. I took a demo song in bitwig...duplicated a bunch if tracks and added high resource synths (Iris 2, Absynth, Kontact Libraries, etc) and than I copied pasted all of that a few times for a total of about 85 tracks. I lowered the buffer in Asio4all to 64 samples...and it played without a hitch and some processing room to spare.

A few days later I received the Behringer xr18 and installation when fine. To give it a test I tried to play back the same project. I can't get it to play in the realm of usability...even at a 4096 buffer. Even creating a new project and using one instance of a plug-in uses remarkably more processing power than it does with Asio4all and the onboard soundcard. Things also just sound worse through the behringer and I notice fwiw the jitter is very hi in the bitwig cpu meter.

The fact that Asio4all works well indicates that it's an issue with the driver or subsystem of the interface right? I get that behringer isn't super pro quality but I should be able to at least expect a relatively clean/useable input and output signal no?

All of the drivers for the mini seem to be up to date...I have another USB interface I can try later for comparison.

Any insight or links would be appreciated.

[dellboy]

Hi.
I just build a new computer for music production.

Ryzen 3900x
32gb DDR4-3600
Asus b450i
Samsung 970 Eco

Behringer XR18 as an interface.

Before I got the interface I tested things out with Asio4all and the onboard sound. I took a demo song in bitwig...duplicated a bunch if tracks and added high resource synths (Iris 2, Absynth, Kontact Libraries, etc) and than I copied pasted all of that a few times for a total of about 85 tracks. I lowered the buffer in Asio4all to 64 samples...and it played without a hitch and some processing room to spare.

A few days later I received the Behringer xr18 and installation when fine. To give it a test I tried to play back the same project. I can't get it to play in the realm of usability...even at a 4096 buffer. Even creating a new project and using one instance of a plug-in uses remarkably more processing power than it does with Asio4all and the onboard soundcard. Things also just sound worse through the behringer and I notice fwiw the jitter is very hi in the bitwig cpu meter.

The fact that Asio4all works well indicates that it's an issue with the driver or subsystem of the interface right? I get that behringer isn't super pro quality but I should be able to at least expect a relatively clean/useable input and output signal no?

All of the drivers for the mini seem to be up to date...I have another USB interface I can try later for comparison.

Any insight or links would be appreciated.

It seems to have very positive reviews everywhere so I guess that is why you bought it.

The up to date drivers seem to be 4.59

There is also a firmware update - did you apply that ?

Based on the fact that user reviews are so positive I guess it does not like your new computer for some reason ?

[guild12]

Cool.. I'll try reinstalling every thing and see what happens. I had an x32 rack for years and loved it.

[BertKoor]

It means Behringer sucks at developing low latency efficient asio drivers. No surprise to me, its very difficult.

[dellboy]

It means Behringer sucks at developing low latency efficient asio drivers. No surprise to me, its very difficult.

That might have been the case 20 years ago but in recent years they have developed their own low latency asio drivers and this unit uses those.

And Sound on Sound gave it a pretty positive review ...............

"My experience of the XR18 has so far been very positive. It’s a great little product which does everything you’d expect from something this compact and at this price, and it does it very well indeed."

https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/behringer-xr18

[JCJR]

A few days later I received the Behringer xr18 and installation when fine. To give it a test I tried to play back the same project. I can't get it to play in the realm of usability...even at a 4096 buffer. Even creating a new project and using one instance of a plug-in uses remarkably more processing power than it does with Asio4all and the onboard soundcard. Things also just sound worse through the behringer and I notice fwiw the jitter is very hi in the bitwig cpu meter.

Hi guild12

If you go into the settings of the XR18 control program (not the driver settings running on your PC)-- Click the Setup button then the Audio/MIDI tab in the Setup window. There you can tell the XR18 to run at either 44.1 k or 48 k, and you can tell the XR18 to either act as an 18 in / 18 out interface, or as a 2 in / 2 out interface.

I do not know "how low you could go" with a properly-tuned perfect PC, with no dpc problems from video and such, and no dpc problems from usb chips or whatever. I read one guy saying that he got lots lower latency with a similar behringer multi-channel interface by connecting it thru a PCIe USB card. He claimed his computer's built-in USB chips on his mobo for whatever reason did not operate as good as from the add-on PCIe usb card. Dunno. Such PCIe USB cards are so cheap I'm tempted to try it on a whim just to find out if it would matter on my computer.

But I digress. Even "un-tuned" latency running in 18/18 channel mode is lots bigger than latency in 2/2 mode.

Dunno if the 18/18 latency is naturally bigger than you would get with that many channels running on some other brand of digital mixer or large interface. Obviously 9X more data has to go down the USB pipe when transferring 18 channels both directions per buffer, versus only 2 channels both directions per buffer.

Perhaps the commonest use-case needing 18/18 mode would be recording live bands or at least ensemble rhythm sections. Needing separate simultaneous tracks for bass, guitars, many drum mics, vocals, horns, live keyboard audio etc. In that use case huge latency mostly doesn't matter because the DAW compensates for the latency and you just GOT to record all those separate tracks simultaneously so you put up with what you have to put up with.

OTOH my use case of many hardware synths plugged into the XR18 so I can easily hear them all at the same time mixed thru the mixer, I get by fine most of the time with 2/2 channel mode which has much lower latency. When I'm bouncing a hardware synth into a daw audio track I only do it one MIDI channel, one synth at a time. So that I can better baby-sit each bounce, and also so I can mute all the other mixer channels avoiding recording noise and hum from other synths just sitting there idling during the bounce.

In 2/2 channel interface mode on my possibly "not ideal latency" old 3.6 Ghz i7 computer, Reaper runs my biggest projects glitch free at 512 sample buffers at 44.1k. At lighter loads small projects I can get it down to 256 or possibly even 128. But I don't like constantly fiddling with stuff and usually leave it set so it never glitches even on big projects. A "big project" for me might be 20 to 30 audio tracks. I bounce hardware MIDI to audio tracks before final mixing. Plus automation and typical audio plugin load and the mastering plugins tacked onto the master bus and un-muted after the mix is "as good as its gonna get." Just bounce the "mastered" final file as nonrealtime render after everything is finished.

Have been very pleased with the audio performance and features of the XR18. Low noise, hum and distortion. Sounds very good to my ears.

One thing-- Are you using some different computer or pad than your main daw to run the mixer control program? The audio and MIDI goes down USB and the mixer control program is either wireless or ethernet.

I first used an ancient motorola android pad to control the XR18 then after a year that old thing finally died so I now use an ancient PC laptop too slow to be good for anything else, connected via ehternet. I notice the ethernet (and presumably wireless) is fairly "talkative" between the control program and the XR18. When connected, the ethernet light is constantly flashing. Sending realtime RTA screen data back to the control program and such I imagine.

Just sayin, if you were running the control program on the main daw computer, then that talky wlan or ethernet would be going on in your main daw computer the same time its trying to do USB audio. The dpc and interupt handling overhead of the WLAN or Ethernet might be enough to fight lowest-latency USB audio performance.

So it would probably be desirable to control the XR18 from some pad, phone or old computer that is not your main daw computer, just to make sure that extra mixer control communications activity can't mess up USB audio performance.

[JCJR]

Though possibly doesn't matter to original poster, slight update in case this gets thread searched-out in the future.

The last few days was revisiting and tweaking the old 3.6 GHz i7 desktop. After a few additional tweaks, I can run Reaper "small projects" at 128 sample buffers 44.1 kHz. Dunno how big a "small project" could get at 128 now before glitches happen. It would involve gradually working on a song adding stuff until it starts breaking up to find out . Currently am not interested enough to throw the time at it.

Also "very simple hookups" will run at 64 samples now but I mostly use hardware din midi synths. I don't think the HW synths are "naturally better" than SW, just personally prefer working with the hardware synths for numerous reasons. So moving mountains to achieve ultra-low latency is not as important to me as it might be a softsynth guy.

I tested an older Reaper project before the most recent computer tweaks, with 21 audio tracks, 7 mono and 14 stereo, automation, FX plugins and mastering plugins on the mix bus. Before the tweaks it would mostly run at 256 sample buffers with an occasional brief burble. But it always runs rock-solid at 512 samples.

I had audio interfaces in the past which made obnoxious clicks and other rude loud sounds on dropouts. Maybe the XR18 can make those sounds under some conditions but with Reaper when dropouts happen the XR18 audio just does neutral-frequency "burbles" which are not super-rude obnoxious compared to loud tweeter-cracking clicks and buzzes Dunno if that behavior is by design or accident.

Am just saying that if a very brief burble only rarely happens then one might not notice unless one is carefully listening at that exact moment. Am just saying that if one typically makes final output as nonrealtime bounce to disk (no audio interface involved) then occasional rare playback burbles might not be a deal-breaker. However of course it would be a deal-breaker if it happened while recording audio.

So before the recent computer tweaks the 21 track project "almost played perfect" at 256 but 512 was the "always solid" choice. AFTER the recent tweaks, that same 21 track project will now run solid no-glitches at 256 but it is still too big to run solid at 128.

So the recent tweaking seems to have done a little bit of good anyway. Since 256 sample buffers "almost worked 100%" before the tweaks, perhaps only a tiny amount of improvement was necessary to make the 256 "completely solid" on the same project.

Possibly an excellent real-time hardware, excellently tuned blistering fast expensive as dammit desktop computer could do even smaller buffers on XR18. Mine is just a 5+ year old Dell consumer 3.6 GHz i7, 16 GB ram, nvidia card, dual 1 TB SSD's.

[egelmett]

Any insight or links would be appreciated.

A friend of mine with Win10, HP Envy laptop (don't remember the model, but it's within the last 6 months) had the same issue. Even at 2048 buffer, glitches.

Turned out to be a conflict with the HDMI display port audio driver built-in to the laptop. Once disabled, no more issues.

I suggest disabling peripheral hardware to locate the conflict. Start with HDMI audio, if your videocard includes this.

[Unaspected]

It means Behringer sucks at developing low latency efficient asio drivers. No surprise to me, its very difficult.

That might have been the case 20 years ago but in recent years they have developed their own low latency asio drivers and this unit uses those.

And Sound on Sound gave it a pretty positive review ...............

"My experience of the XR18 has so far been very positive. It’s a great little product which does everything you’d expect from something this compact and at this price, and it does it very well indeed."

https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/behringer-xr18

I'm not sure I would trust magazine reviews beyond using them to learn what kind of features are being presented. Treating them more as advertisements. It's equally difficult getting sense out of YouTube reviews. If there is any hint that the product was given to the reviewer for free, if they are a studio with slick YouTube production values, I generally scrap such reviews. Unless it is a synth or audio processor - but then I'm just listening to the sound and generally ignoring the opinions.

The last few days was revisiting and tweaking the old 3.6 GHz i7 desktop. After a few additional tweaks, I can run Reaper "small projects" at 128 sample buffers 44.1 kHz. Dunno how big a "small project" could get at 128 now before glitches happen. It would involve gradually working on a song adding stuff until it starts breaking up to find out . Currently am not interested enough to throw the time at it.

Reaper was updated recently to use systems with multiple cores more efficiently - and Reaper is the most efficient DAW I've ever used. However, the least efficient DAW I have ever used is FL Studio and yet I can easily track into that with a latency of 1ms at 48kHz, on a Ryzen 1700X, using a Focusrite Clarett 2Pre USB - a company that isn't renowned for great drivers. What I can't do in FL Studio is then start piling on the plugins without resetting the buffer - unlike with Reaper.

[egelmett]

It means Behringer sucks at developing low latency efficient asio drivers. No surprise to me, its very difficult.

Read my reply to Guild12 - it could very well be a hardware conflict with the PC itself, not the drivers.

As for driver performance, I can say the XR18 works well with Macbooks and under live performance conditions with Reaper, and Mainstage. I use Reaper for my sequence playback, and Mainstage for synths, both piped into the Aux channel of the XR18 simultaneously via USB at 256 buffer. This is acceptable latency for me, playing live. Been using it since 2016.

I like it so much, I purchased another as the audio interface for my Hackintosh and there too, no issues with latency or stability. Using the XR18 as an audio interface is complicated in some ways, but is far more flexible than the Steinberg UR44 I was using. The Dual Leisure compressor (LA2A style) in the FX of the XR18 is great for vocal recording!

[foxache]

Hi.
I just build a new computer for music production.

Ryzen 3900x
32gb DDR4-3600
Asus b450i
Samsung 970 Eco

Behringer XR18 as an interface.

Before I got the interface I tested things out with Asio4all and the onboard sound. I took a demo song in bitwig...duplicated a bunch if tracks and added high resource synths (Iris 2, Absynth, Kontact Libraries, etc) and than I copied pasted all of that a few times for a total of about 85 tracks. I lowered the buffer in Asio4all to 64 samples...and it played without a hitch and some processing room to spare.

A few days later I received the Behringer xr18 and installation when fine. To give it a test I tried to play back the same project. I can't get it to play in the realm of usability...even at a 4096 buffer. Even creating a new project and using one instance of a plug-in uses remarkably more processing power than it does with Asio4all and the onboard soundcard. Things also just sound worse through the behringer and I notice fwiw the jitter is very hi in the bitwig cpu meter.

The fact that Asio4all works well indicates that it's an issue with the driver or subsystem of the interface right? I get that behringer isn't super pro quality but I should be able to at least expect a relatively clean/useable input and output signal no?

All of the drivers for the mini seem to be up to date...I have another USB interface I can try later for comparison.

Any insight or links would be appreciated.

Did you manage to fix this?

You shouldn't really see any performance increase from the audio interface other than maybe a small latency reduction (you're paying for the improved analogue to digital/digital to analogue conversion) but you definitely shouldn't hear worse playback.

[chk071]

It means Behringer sucks at developing low latency efficient asio drivers.

Just what I was about to answer.

[RunBeerRun]

The Behringer driver running at 4096 should be a super long initial delay.

Are you sure you have it set to ASIO and not directsound(I don't use Bitwig)?