Audio interface buying guide for me

[vignesh.vijay]

Hi,
I am a home studio musician working mostly with vsts, samples , recording midi, and using plugins . Rarely, but sometimes i record some vocals
My pc configuration is as follows:
1. Intel i7 5960 x has well e processor
2. Gigabyte GA UD4 X99 motherboard
3. 32 GB ddr4 ram
4. 1 tb ssd hard drive.
5. Focusrite 2i4 audio interface.
6. Shure SM7B Mic with cloud lifter
7. Korg x50 (used as midi keyboard)
8. Yamaha hs5 monitors
9. Beyerdynamic dt770 pro headphones

I will be upgrading my pc a year later.
I'm looking to upgrade my audio interface at this point.
I would like a lower latency and able to load more instruments/plugins. What specs do I need to look when buying an audio interface?

[vignesh.vijay]

What is the real difference between high priced audio interface like RME babyface pro fs vs lower priced ones like audient mkii or apogee boom?

[BertKoor]

Driver stability & brand reputation is what sets apart your current interface and RME.

Guide? Imho it's mainly what I/O do you need...

The interface usually is not the weak link in the chain. I doubt with an upgrade you'll really get what you want in a significant amount.

[vignesh.vijay]

How do I understand if an interface has a low latency for midi tracking? And has decent preamp for recording vocals?

[tehlord]

How do I understand if an interface has a low latency for midi tracking? And has decent preamp for recording vocals?

You know by reading reviews.

But in reality, almost any audio interface is more than good enough for any home studio these days.

In terms of good budget brands, I've found Audient interfaces to have about the best pre-amps and latency for sensible money.

I've owned literally dozens of audio interfaces in the last decade, and the difference between a budget brand and RME is vast. RME are better in virtually every respect, but mainly build quality, driver performance and stability, customer support, longevity and pre-amp performance. But whether YOU need it or not is questionable.

I'd go for something like the Audient ID4.

Don't forget that latency is also a factor of how powerful your CPU is, more so than the interface driver. The more powerful your CPU, the lower you can set your buffer size for any given project. In terms of how many plugins you can load, that's 100% CPU dependant.

[morelia]

My RME Babyface Pro FS arrived today. To be honest I don't know whether I did the right thing spending all that money on an interface, especially when my PC is around 7 years old and Windows 10 is crumbling around me. One thing I am fairly certain about though is that my interface needs are probably over for the next 10 to 20 years and I am unlikely to want for anything better. So I can forget about it now and focus on everything else.

[chk071]

My RME Babyface Pro FS arrived today. To be honest I don't know whether I did the right thing spending all that money on an interface

If you don't need remarkably low latency, probably not.

[FapFilter]

congratulations, as far as i can tell the Babyface was out of stock around here for at least well over a year now.
Just checked Thomann (one of the largest, if not THE) music stores here in Europe, and they seemingly don't even list it anymore at all

[vignesh.vijay]

In terms of price, Babyface pro is 5 times higher than Audient ID4 or Motu M2. But my question is whether for a home studio like mine, is babyface going to be needed? What does it do better than Id4 or M2? Does it help with midi latency? Or is it just the high quality preamp for vocal recording?

[vignesh.vijay]

I see the price of Apogee duet 3 somewhere in the middle and I see it having good preamp. But will it help me anything with the latency for my midi performance?

[vignesh.vijay]

Does anyone know how to read this? What does RXC, CV, NCV, I/O, RTL mean? I can do a comparitive study.
https://gearspace.com/board/music-compu ... -base.html

[T-CM11]

anything with the latency for my midi performance?

You keep saying that. Midi latency (introduced by your controller/keyboard) is irrelevant - it's about audio latency, which depends on the audio interface and CPU(/load).

... and able to load more instruments/plugins.

Upgrade your CPU (+motherboard). Maybe also your CPU cooler (depending on what's your current one and if you appreciate less noise).
Read up about RAM requirements - the latest AMD CPUs are DDR5-only.

[BertKoor]

RTL is likely Round-Trip Latency: the time it takes for an audio signal to go from input through Analog-Digital converter, input buffer, other things in software, output buffer and Digital-Analog converter to output. It's usually in the order of 3x expected delay based on buffer size & sampling frequency. Only important if you need to monitor incoming audio effected through a DAW. In your case half of that path is relevant.

Other abbreviations refer to DawBench testing methods and stuff they let the DAW do to put under stress. CV: convolution, NCV: NonConvolution.
See http://www.original.dawbench.com/audio- ... tency2.htm
(Link from the gearspace post you linked yourself)

What is your current buffer size & sampling rate?

I'm asking because your current interface is already pretty decent, and I expect your current latency is limited by cpu power. Picking instruments & effects wisely can help. Do you use busses, or does all go directly go to master bus? Compressors & limiters? These often add more latency than any audio interface already has. Just checking...

[vurt]

as bert says, the focusrite latency is fine, so long as you set a buffer in your software and have power enough on the ram/cpu.

a new interface won't improve things noticeably unless you also upgrade the computer.
upgrading the computer first, then seeing if the latency is still bad is probably a better idea.

[BertKoor]

Vignesh, can you do a simple test? Load the Synth1 plugin (known to be light weight) in an empty project. How do you experience latency as you play now?