Hi, I have a EMU 1820 soundcard, and it gives me a great latency. But I was wondering, Is there on the market any soundcard that can give me a best latency than this one? I use a lot of VSTi and I record playing live the controller, so I need a 2ms latency, but using 5 VSTi I have to use the latency on 6 or 10ms, If I Change my 1820 for another can I have, 10 or more VSTi simultaneosly with 2ms latency? I don't know, There are soundcards with better ASIO latency than the EMU 1820?

Thanks

Actually, although I too have an Emu 1820M in my collection I don't find it particularly easy to get running smoothly down to low latency values, possibly because of all the DSP stuff on board.

However, although audio interface driver quality is one factor in determining how low a latency you can achieve, there are various others to consider, including how well your computer has been set up, what background tasks it may be running, and whether it contains any rogue devices that take more than their fair share of resources.

Having said that, a latency of 6mS to 10mS isn't large, and most keyboard players would find this perfectly adequate for most instrumental sounds. Personally I'm surprised you can detect the difference when playing VST Instruments live. It's only when monitoring incoming audio being recorded that sub 3mS latencies generally become more important.


Martin

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YewTreeMagic

agreed i never use my 1820m cos of the latency, it just sits on the shelf (i should sell it actualy)

esi go low - 1ms. I get 1ms on both the Juli@ and the esp1010 and you can work at that rate, not like 1ms and it'll run 1 plugin and thats it, lol

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You might think that... but I couldn't possibly comment.

RME PCI/PCIe. Ultra stable whilst being thrashed at 1.5ms; will go down to 0.75ms too.

Quote Rousseau:

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RME PCI/PCIe. Ultra stable whilst being thrashed at 1.5ms; will go down to 0.75ms too.

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which costs tons more and doesn't give any better signal specs than the esi cards do they? rme dont do any cards which have just stereo i/o they are all multi connector added.

the cheapest rme i can think of is the HDSP 9632 which has unbalanced outs only as-is (i expect there's an add-on balanced-out cable for it as usual) and costs over twice the Juli@ (fully balanced i/o) price and doesnt really give a better signal specs

actualy while we're on the subject can i say I have never understood RME's thinking. Everything with RME is add-on this and add-on for that etc, sure they do good pro solutions for boffin-techies, but for the mass market? it's such a fragmented product line it reminds me of the ghastly Hoontech catalog before hoontech got their act together. RME imo need to just sort their catalog into some easy to wade thru way, so people can make sense of their product line. If i was the MD of RME i'd have kicked some arse already over this. It's like trying to make sense of a creamware audio device product catalog, lol,

"Oooh if i just get the optional cable bracket with the left-handed clunge-pump grommet I can then attach the midi in/out!"

then you find that the midi i/o board itself is comprised of 8 parts which can be configured in multiple ways, including a special bracket for using it on the surface of Pluto... arg!!

what the hell are they thinking these people?

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You might think that... but I couldn't possibly comment.

I think you'll find that RME don't care much for the MI market as a whole, and concentrate on the pro end, where multiple I/Os on a single card are crucial, and moreover where somewhat more robust and/or advanced connection formats are required, such as 48, 56 and 64k frame MADI or AES3 and the like.

It would be most likely in these given situations that the customer would have their own I/O breakout and transport options, and would be looking merely for the backstop end of the chain to be rock solid, stable, reliable and well clocked.

RME have that side of the market sown up and have done for the best part of 8 years. In particular they were the first to market with OEM PCI MADI cards, at a time when only Euphonix, Fairlight and to a lesser extent Lawo and Harrison were offering such things, and all three of the latter only as part of on- or off-line DSP packages, not for individual I/O use.

In this day an age of expanded comupting rigs, particularly with the adoption of slave machines for outboard DSP processing or sample generation and playback, both the high I/O MADI cards and the lower I/O 9652s and the like have their place. Again, RME were quickest off the bat with PCI-X and again with PCIe, which has kept the pro market very happy indeed.

As for the options cards, they're there for situations where the customer would like to tailor a specific machine quickly and easily if for example they need a quick 6 or 8 out of an OB rig for surround monitoring offline or backup, and the clocking cards for those that are using poorly clocked sources and need reference to an OB, House or Vid clock hard wired and cannot simply resort to RME's own SyncAlign.

For my part I've been using RME gear for seven years now, and I am still running two of the cards I bought right back on day one - still being updated in firmware and drivers, still operating without fault.

You get what you pay for.... and if you don't need their features, then don't buy them.

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Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile.

Hello,

1. Here are the audio interfaces I tested successfully at very low latency:

- RME Fireface 400 or 800 (Windows / OSX), RME Multiface (Windows/OSX/Linux)
- Avance AC'97 onboard sound card with the ASIO4ALL driver (Windows)


2. These ones were crappy:

- Edirol UA-1EX


3. These ones must be good but I don't have any good practice of them

- Apogee Duet
- Apogee Ensemble
- MOTU ultralite
- MOTU 828
- Other interfaces by RME, MOTU or Apogee

Quote redleicester:

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I think you'll find that RME don't care much for the MI market as a whole, and concentrate on the pro end, where multiple I/Os on a single card are crucial, and moreover where somewhat more robust and/or advanced connection formats are required, such as 48, 56 and 64k frame MADI or AES3 and the like.

It would be most likely in these given situations that the customer would have their own I/O breakout and transport options, and would be looking merely for the backstop end of the chain to be rock solid, stable, reliable and well clocked.

RME have that side of the market sown up and have done for the best part of 8 years. In particular they were the first to market with OEM PCI MADI cards, at a time when only Euphonix, Fairlight and to a lesser extent Lawo and Harrison were offering such things, and all three of the latter only as part of on- or off-line DSP packages, not for individual I/O use.

In this day an age of expanded comupting rigs, particularly with the adoption of slave machines for outboard DSP processing or sample generation and playback, both the high I/O MADI cards and the lower I/O 9652s and the like have their place. Again, RME were quickest off the bat with PCI-X and again with PCIe, which has kept the pro market very happy indeed.

As for the options cards, they're there for situations where the customer would like to tailor a specific machine quickly and easily if for example they need a quick 6 or 8 out of an OB rig for surround monitoring offline or backup, and the clocking cards for those that are using poorly clocked sources and need reference to an OB, House or Vid clock hard wired and cannot simply resort to RME's own SyncAlign.

For my part I've been using RME gear for seven years now, and I am still running two of the cards I bought right back on day one - still being updated in firmware and drivers, still operating without fault.

You get what you pay for.... and if you don't need their features, then don't buy them.

---

sure, thats all well and good, but that doesnt mean they cant arrange their product line into packages instead of having breakout cables etc seperate from the cards they fit etc etc.. it's a mess from a marketing point of view.

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You might think that... but I couldn't possibly comment.

Quote Dr Whom:

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sure, thats all well and good, but that doesnt mean they cant arrange their product line into packages instead of having breakout cables etc seperate from the cards they fit etc etc.. it's a mess from a marketing point of view.

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That said though, it's not like they're struggling to sell their products...

Dr. W - RME used to do exactly what you are wanting & apparently their core market didn`t want that as much as they wanted the flexibility offered by their current system.

Like any other company they ARE market driven, they are just not interested in YOUR segment of the market is all.

Personally I find it hard to see why you are panicked about getting sub-2ms latency out of a stereo card, but that is your choice.

I have a couple of Emu cards and run them at between 3 and 5ms latency. I am pretty picky about timing and can honestly say it has never made me unable to play anything at that level of latency.

However I only use a max of 3 VSTi`s as the rest is all audio.

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Me? But I`m such a loveable old bugger!

Don't forget also that an AD hooked directly to a DA with nothing in between will typically have a delay of a hundred samples or thereabouts (decimation filters and upsampling in the DAC), so there is about two ms even with no computer involved!

Now as to your recording, how much latency is inherent in the controller? Midi can get really quite laggy if heavily loaded and it dont take much to rack up a few milliseconds here.

Finally, how far away are your monitor speakers, sound travels at about one foot per ms, so a few feet there can and another three ms or so.

I have to admit to being somewhat surprised that even ten ms of software latency being anything you would notice, ten ms of control latency jitter maybe, but ten or twenty ms of audio io latency is normally only a problem if you are a singer monitoring on cans - it interacts with the bone conduction signal in a weird way.

Regards, Dan (Who is another RME user and likes them just the way they are thank you).

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Audiophiles use phono leads because they are unbalanced people!

Quote Bob Moose:

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2. These ones were crappy:

- Edirol UA-1EX

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And to demonstrate the wonderful variability of the PC world, I have one of these which I can get to successfully run at about 4mS latency! (Athlon Turion 6 dual core laptop)

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* Soundcloud *
* Bandcamp *

Quote reverend-x:

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Quote Dr Whom:

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sure, thats all well and good, but that doesnt mean they cant arrange their product line into packages instead of having breakout cables etc seperate from the cards they fit etc etc.. it's a mess from a marketing point of view.

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That said though, it's not like they're struggling to sell their products...

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Quite. It would seem madness for them to suddenly whack up the price of all the cards by bundling in countless analogue / TDIF / clock daughterboards into every box which would be immediately discarded by 95% of their customers.

Surely one should be applauding them for offering the options in the first place?!

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Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile.

Quote dmills:

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I have to admit to being somewhat surprised that even ten ms of software latency being anything you would notice, ten ms of control latency jitter maybe, but ten or twenty ms of audio io latency is normally only a problem if you are a singer monitoring on cans - it interacts with the bone conduction signal in a weird way.

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Exactly - I've never had a problem playing any software instrument with a latency of 12mS, which is what you get with a buffer size of 512 samples at a sample rate of 44.1kHz.


Martin

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YewTreeMagic

Quote rich_h:

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Quote Bob Moose:

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2. These ones were crappy:

- Edirol UA-1EX

---

And to demonstrate the wonderful variability of the PC world, I have one of these which I can get to successfully run at about 4mS latency! (Athlon Turion 6 dual core laptop)

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Actually, it was crappy because of increased CPU compared to most other interfaces, due to poor DSP audio buffer size management (always much shorter than the hardware audio buffer size, which is useless most of the time).
But latency was, say, OK.

I don't have much of a problem with CPU usage either, to be honest. Although the only thing I have to compare it against is the on-board sound with ASIO4ALL which it trounces.

Having said that, I will probably upgrade to a better interface before too long.

--------------------
* Soundcloud *
* Bandcamp *

Quote reverend-x:

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Quote Dr Whom:

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sure, thats all well and good, but that doesnt mean they cant arrange their product line into packages instead of having breakout cables etc seperate from the cards they fit etc etc.. it's a mess from a marketing point of view.

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That said though, it's not like they're struggling to sell their products...

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well how would you know anything about their current financial status? as long as RME have been going i have never met a musician with an RME product, not once in all those years.

companies with WAY more turnover than RME are going to the wall left right and center.

Quote Dr Whom:

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Quote reverend-x:

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Quote Dr Whom:

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sure, thats all well and good, but that doesnt mean they cant arrange their product line into packages instead of having breakout cables etc seperate from the cards they fit etc etc.. it's a mess from a marketing point of view.

---

That said though, it's not like they're struggling to sell their products...

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how would you know anything about their curent financial status? that's hardly a sensible attitude in the current climate? - remind me not to hire you anytime soon, lol


it's quite simple they just need top arrange the packages in price order - with each package showing the card, cables and breakoutboxes which can go together

it's as simple as that really.

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Don't forget Dr W, there are rather a lot of professionals on this forum who work closely with many different manufacturers, so the inside track on sales is fairly likely be easy to ascertain.

If you look at their website, I would have said they were fairly logically arranged by interface type (FW / PCI / PCIe / ExpressCard and so on, and each interface then has its options listed...

Not sure where you're going with this one chap...?

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Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile.

Quote redleicester:

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Quote Dr Whom:

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Quote reverend-x:

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Quote Dr Whom:

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sure, thats all well and good, but that doesnt mean they cant arrange their product line into packages instead of having breakout cables etc seperate from the cards they fit etc etc.. it's a mess from a marketing point of view.

---

That said though, it's not like they're struggling to sell their products...

---

how would you know anything about their curent financial status? that's hardly a sensible attitude in the current climate? - remind me not to hire you anytime soon, lol


it's quite simple they just need top arrange the packages in price order - with each package showing the card, cables and breakoutboxes which can go together

it's as simple as that really.

---

Don't forget Dr W, there are rather a lot of professionals on this forum who work closely with many different manufacturers, so the inside track on sales is fairly likely be easy to ascertain.

If you look at their website, I would have said they were fairly logically arranged by interface type (FW / PCI / PCIe / ExpressCard and so on, and each interface then has its options listed...

Not sure where you're going with this one chap...?

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going? eh? we're just talking arent we? does there have to be a 'winner' in a conversation?

well lets see what happens with a collapsing economy going on. I cant beleive RME turnover that much anyway.

so perhaps i'm saying they need to think about encapsulating a broader client base? Name me ONE company that doesnt want to do that?

rme are not Bentley or Ferrari where, yes, selling a small quantity can work thru hard times. As i said, i never met anyone with an rme product. and i bet a web-poll across various music forums of user cards ranked by manufacturer would have them down in the bottom ranking for ownership.


Now you take Hoontech, ok, smaler company initialy, cheaper product line of course (but good & reliable); their early 'Korean designed' website did an 'RME', with everything split into components, it was a nightmare of marketting crapola. and no-one bought

then they redesigned their site with products clearly arranged into 'this goes with this' easy to assess packages.

sales rose quickly & massively and with a short time they were a number-1 seller of a multi i/o pci audio device.

worth a thought.






your round mate

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You might think that... but I couldn't possibly comment.

Quote:

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going? eh? we're just talking arent we? does there have to be a 'winner' in a conversation?

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No indeed there doesn't, we're barking up the same tree - wasn't, enquiring where you're going! It's not a competition at all, I'm simply trying to explain there's a heck of a lot of market share which RME have neatly wrapped up, yet the man on the street (NOT implying that's you) has barely heard of them.

Quote:

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well lets see what happens with a collapsing economy going on. I cant beleive RME turnover that much anyway.

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You'd be surprised. Their MI market is tiny, their pro market is enormous and practically sown up wholesale.

Quote:

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so perhaps i'm saying they need to think about encapsulating a broader client base? Name me ONE company that doesnt want to do that?

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That's why the offer their cards to the MI market... very few buy them for the reasons you outlined in your first post! The vast majority of their market have no interest in the options boards, so they merely offer them for the sake of completeness.

Quote:

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As i said, i never met anyone with an rme product. and i bet a web-poll across various music forums of user cards ranked by manufacturer would have them down in the bottom ranking for ownership.

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Having never met anyone who owns one, I'm astonished you can still feel able to make a judgement on how awful they clearly are?! Don't forget, when Steinberg wanted dedicated audio I/O for their new post production platform, Nuendo, who did they turn to for hardware?

Would you lump Euphonix in the same bracket? Or Harrison? Lawo? Sydec? Digico? Prism? RME have been going from strength to strength for the last 12 years or so, and given that the pro market is massively more robust than the fickle and credit crunch infected MI one as has been proven since time immemorial, moving to MI right now could be quite possibly a suicidal business decision.

Oh, and if you want the number one selling PCI audio device, you ouht to be looking at Singapore.


Not scoring points chap, just trying to understand where you're coming from given your own admission of not knowing anyone with an RME card of any flavour.

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Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile.

Quote Dr Whom:

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Quote redleicester:

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Quote Dr Whom:

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Quote reverend-x:

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Quote Dr Whom:

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sure, thats all well and good, but that doesnt mean they cant arrange their product line into packages instead of having breakout cables etc seperate from the cards they fit etc etc.. it's a mess from a marketing point of view.

---

That said though, it's not like they're struggling to sell their products...

---

how would you know anything about their curent financial status? that's hardly a sensible attitude in the current climate? - remind me not to hire you anytime soon, lol


it's quite simple they just need top arrange the packages in price order - with each package showing the card, cables and breakoutboxes which can go together

it's as simple as that really.

---

Don't forget Dr W, there are rather a lot of professionals on this forum who work closely with many different manufacturers, so the inside track on sales is fairly likely be easy to ascertain.

If you look at their website, I would have said they were fairly logically arranged by interface type (FW / PCI / PCIe / ExpressCard and so on, and each interface then has its options listed...

Not sure where you're going with this one chap...?

---

going? eh? we're just talking arent we? does there have to be a 'winner' in a conversation?

well lets see what happens with a collapsing economy going on. I cant beleive RME turnover that much anyway.

so perhaps i'm saying they need to think about encapsulating a broader client base? Name me ONE company that doesnt want to do that?

rme are not Bentley or Ferrari where, yes, selling a small quantity can work thru hard times. As i said, i never met anyone with an rme product. and i bet a web-poll across various music forums of user cards ranked by manufacturer would have them down in the bottom ranking for ownership.


Now you take Hoontech, ok, smaler company initialy, cheaper product line of course (but good & reliable); their early 'Korean designed' website did an 'RME', with everything split into components, it was a nightmare of marketting crapola. and no-one bought

then they redesigned their site with products clearly arranged into 'this goes with this' easy to assess packages.

sales rose quickly & massively and with a short time they were a number-1 seller of a multi i/o pci audio device.

worth a thought.






your round mate

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I too fail to see what your point is...

RME offers a large range of pro audio interfaces that one can tailor very easily to their own requirements. That you don't seem to grasp that isn't a reflection on their business model or their sales figures.

Quote Dr Whom:

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well lets see what happens with a collapsing economy going on. I cant beleive RME turnover that much anyway.

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Your basing that opinion on.....a hunch?......crystal ball? Unless you've got some kind of inside knowledge of RME's financial standing, you'll have a hard time getting anyone to take that statement seriously. High turnover is not indicative of profit, just as (relatively) low turnover is not a sign of a company going to the wall. Also consider the fact that many of RME's products are things that have been selling well for years - they've long since earned back their R+D costs and so are now very profitable, per unit sold, for RME. Now that's the sign of a well run business....

Quote Dr Whom:

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so perhaps i'm saying they need to think about encapsulating a broader client base? Name me ONE company that doesnt want to do that?

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I'm sure RME would love to have an even wider reach, but it sounds like you're just not familiar with just how broad their penetration is into markets that don't revolve around sales to the public from your local music shop.

Quote Dr Whom:

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rme are not Bentley or Ferrari where, yes, selling a small quantity can work thru hard times. As i said, i never met anyone with an rme product. and i bet a web-poll across various music forums of user cards ranked by manufacturer would have them down in the bottom ranking for ownership.

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Well, just who are you anyway? Without knowing that, again it's hard to attach any weight to the fact you don't know anyone with an RME product. And conducting a web poll is hardly statistical research at the cutting edge.... unless, that is, you're willing to categorise your poll as 'Top Ten Audio Interfaces As Used By People Who Could Be Bothered To Reply To My Web Poll On The Music Forums I Frequent'

Quote Dr Whom:

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Now you take Hoontech, ok, smaler company initialy, cheaper product line of course (but good & reliable); their early 'Korean designed' website did an 'RME', with everything split into components, it was a nightmare of marketting crapola. and no-one bought

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Two things - Hoontech's products were by definition aimed at people who don't need or want a wide choice of configuration. If you're getting stuck into building a system using RME's MADI + AES products, then you demand as much flexibility as possible. Secondly, just because Hoontech didn't have the nous to create a workable, multi component sales website doesn't mean that the model is doomed to failure across the board. Canford Audio, Maplin and Conrad.de all seem to be keeping their customers happy with theirs.

Quote Dr Whom:

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then they redesigned their site with products clearly arranged into 'this goes with this' easy to assess packages. sales rose quickly & massively and with a short time they were a number-1 seller of a multi i/o pci audio device.

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So what you're really saying is that Hoontech saw the sense in RME's approach of giving their specific type of customer what they want, redesigned their website and came back from the brink of destruction? Well, thank goodness for RME - that's all I can say!

oh i see! doesnt that sound clever!



Let's re-cap - i said their web catalog is a mess & breaks every rule of good catalog design (in a humerous lighthearted way you'll note) *sigh*


Now you can try the RME web-catalog challenge!! (soon to be an ITV TV show hosted by Ant & Dec)

You can play along at home too all you thread lurkers!


Step-1: load this RME catalog page:

http://www.rme-audio.de/en_products_hdsp_pci_interface.php



STEP-2: now try and choose the same page from the main top-left menu.



then come back and comment on my observation.

Quote Dr Whom:

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Step-1: load this RME catalog page:

http://www.rme-audio.de/en_products_hdsp_pci_interface.php



STEP-2: now try and choose the same page from the main top-left menu.



then come back and comment on my observation.

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Go to menu, select PCI & Cardbus, External, HDSP PCI Interface.

Not sure what the problem is with that!?

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Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile.

@ Dr W : Well, you would only need that device if you wanted to connect (say) a Multiface to a PC desktop. Otherwise you wouldn't need it. What's wrong with having people read the product specs and only buying the bits they need? The product page for (say) the Multiface explains this very clearly.

PS I'm a musician and I managed to buy several RME products all by myself

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getting better all the time..

Edited by adrian_k (28/11/08 11:16 AM)

Quote Dr Whom:

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oh i see! doesnt that sound clever!



Let's re-cap - i said their web catalog is a mess & breaks every rule of good catalog design (in a humerous lighthearted way you'll note) *sigh*

Now you can try the RME web-catalog challenge!! (soon to be an ITV TV show hosted by Ant & Dec)

You can play along at home too all you thread lurkers!

Step-1: load this RME catalog page:

http://www.rme-audio.de/en_products_hdsp_pci_interface.php

STEP-2: now try and choose the same page from the main top-left menu.

then come back and comment on my observation.

---

ooo - can I play?

OK, it all worked as it should - do I win?

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I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and think things over
Twitter

Don't worry Dr. Whom - this interweb thingy isn't as tricky as it first looks; once you've got your head round how a nested menu hierarchy works, you'll be ready for a real challenge...

Getting the SOS forum search function to work properly!