1 Topic by Popa2caps (edited by Popa2caps 2016-11-02 08:03:46)

  • Registered: 2016-11-02
  • Posts: 4

Topic: Do i need a Audio Interface?™®

Computer Internals
i7 4790k not overclocked
Gigabyte G1 Sniper
16gb RAM
500GB HDD backup
2TB HDD projects
3TB HDD Samples
250GB Samsung 840 Evo OS VSti's
GPU Nvidia 770 (Drivers suck, high latency)

I'm asking this for a couple of reasons, First i don't really know what a Audio Interface does, Second my on-board soundcard has worked so far. What would i notice from upgrading to a Audio Interface or PCie, It's been like 6 years sense i owned a M-Audio Delta 88 and i hated it, The little screen to control my volume , Just hated it.

At the moment my devices or hardware outside the computer is
Mackie MR8's
AKG 702's
Yamaha DGX 520
2 27's monitors, love my mixer on 2nd screen hehe
Fiio E09k Headphone amp, My headphones are very low volume with out this.

Now to explain why or how i do this is simple, i love Studio monitors, and The headphones are amazing, super clean. I hook these up from the computers 3.5mm to RCA to the Fiio E09k, Pre out from that to a hum killer box thingy, Out from that to TRS to XLR to monitors. I know it sucks, i'm looking to fix it. yikes.0:

My host program is from Image line FL Studio 12, My current latency is 77MS, being that i'm 19 years into Piano that anything under 88 is just fine.
Would a Audio Interface fix this, make it go down?
I really want something with a volume knob, I don't need inputs Just Headphone out that can power these headphones and a out for the monitors oc.

Sorry if i lost anyone here, I'm just looking at all the devices and everyone seems to get shiny things, But to my knowledge i want the very best drivers, i can what it looks like.
My plan is to get my Latency down with Midi, Will with help on CPU? Atm with lets say 33 library's i'm around 44% CPU, this is a mix of Legato Staccato and what not,  Trying to best in detail so my workflow.

Ask anything, and i shall reply, Thanks again.

  • ramses
  • DAW Mastermind
  • Offline
  • From: UTC+1
  • Registered: 2012-10-14
  • Posts: 12,040

Re: Do i need a Audio Interface?™®

A recording interface
- has much better quality compared to soundchips on mainboard
- comes with low latency ASIO drivers which bypass the windows sound system entirely
- offer more options to you as buyer, i.e.
   - to get all currently required analog and digital interfaces which you need now
   - to have the ability to expand the solution for connecting even more devices / preamps via analog, adat, madi

To your requirements:

1. In regards to the headphones .. your AKG 702 has 62 Ohm impedance. New RME interfaces come with a more powerful headphone amp, so I am pretty sure you can get rid of the Fiio.

2. You want an easy control over the volume etc ? DIM, MUTE, switch between Monitor A/B, etc ... You could get the new ARC USB which is being in production currently. You connect it to PC and TotalMix makes the connection between ARC USB and the RME device. You can of course alternatively control the volume of your main device on the RME interface. If you get i.e. the Babyface pro, then you have this integrated.

3. Regarding latency. With RMEs USB2 / USB3 / Thunderbolt / Firewire based interfaces you get latencies which come pretty close to the performance of a PCIe card, look at this table. RME drivers are rock solid / performant and have a "name" in this sector for this reason. Look at the excel sheet in my blog article here: http://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/inde … 8-RME-UFX/
With ASIO buffersizes of 32-128 we talk about round trip times (between recording interface and DAW and the way back) between 3-8 ms depending of what interface you choose.

4. RME interfaces also offer MIDI

I think the following interfaces would be suitable for you in general terms:
- Babyface Pro - this has new headphone preamp
- UCX
- UC
- of course also the others (802, UFX, UFX+) but I think they might be over budget for you
What is your budget?

Please note that there is a special offer until mid of January to get the UFX to a much reduced price because of the 20 year anniversary of RME ... that might be an option for you to get something special for a real cool price.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13