Cannot get low latency with USB audio gear

[Steven Minzer]

Yes, I did reduce buffer sizes. No luck yet.

I bought a new PC (it was about time): tenth generation i7, 2.6 Ghz, 16GB RAM, 512 GB SSD.....(and, yes, Ethernet), changed setting as prescribed in Glitch Free, ran Latencymon and passed with flying colors (green). Never happened before on the old PC.

I did a JK Add Gear for USB Audio Codec for my audio device to make sure something worked and go 20 ms latency as always.

I installed asio4all on the pc. Then an Add Gear for it. A 10 ms frame size resulted in 20ms latency again, 5 ms frame in 10ms and 2.5 in 5ms. IO jitters was problematic for the smaller frames. The sound was good with the 10ms frame, but not the lower settings (constant noise, pops, clicks). JK notifications appeared on the PC display with a session setup for the smaller frame sizes stating that there were audio problems with the gear.

I also installed the Reaper DAW with Rearoute, used Asio4all as its driver and did add Gear for Rearoute. I reduced the buffer size, this time using the Asio4all panel embedded in Reaper, instead of Manage/Audio Settings/Audio Booster, starting with the default 256 sample ASIO buffer size, down to 64 sample. 256 resulted in 18 ms latency and 64 in 4.4. The IO jitter here too was a problem for the smaller buffers, but not the 256.

IO jitter with smaller buffers appears to be a problem with asio4all and jamkazam. I found this conclusion in another thread on the forum.

I am hopeful that I will be able to reduce latency with an audio device that has its own ASIO driver. I believe Focusrite and MOTU have ASIO drivers. Probably Steinberg too.

Can you recommend one?
Thanks

[Steven Minzer]

I am seriously considering getting the Focusrite Scarlett i2i. It has its own driver, so I can get rid of asio4all. I look foward deleting the app from my PC.

A lot of people like the i2i. I still don’t understand why I get the sound degradation and jitter with asio4all with smaller buffers but not with the i2i driver. I understand that asio4all runs as an application leveraging on usb wdm Codec and the Focusrite is a real ASIO driver, with stuff going into the Windows device management folder ... But so what?

I presume that Focusrite provides a mechanism to adjust the buffer Size and resync jamkazam to utilize the new buffer size without leaving a jk session. I don’t want to lose that capability. Am I becoming paranoid?

[StuartR]

Yes, I did reduce buffer sizes. No luck yet.

I bought a new PC (it was about time): tenth generation i7, 2.6 Ghz, 16GB RAM, 512 GB SSD.....(and, yes, Ethernet), changed setting as prescribed in Glitch Free, ran Latencymon and passed with flying colors (green). Never happened before on the old PC.

I did a JK Add Gear for USB Audio Codec for my audio device to make sure something worked and go 20 ms latency as always.

I installed asio4all on the pc. Then an Add Gear for it.  A 10 ms frame size resulted in 20ms latency again, 5 ms frame in 10ms and 2.5 in 5ms. IO jitters was problematic for the smaller frames.  The sound was good with the 10ms frame, but not the lower settings (constant noise, pops, clicks). JK  notifications appeared on the PC display with a session setup for the smaller frame sizes stating that there were audio problems with the gear.

I also installed the Reaper DAW with Rearoute, used Asio4all as its driver and did add Gear for Rearoute.  I reduced the buffer size, this time using the Asio4all panel embedded in Reaper, instead of Manage/Audio Settings/Audio Booster, starting with the default 256 sample ASIO buffer size, down to 64 sample. 256 resulted in 18 ms latency and 64 in 4.4. The IO jitter here too was a problem for the smaller buffers, but not the 256.

IO jitter with smaller buffers appears to be a problem with asio4all and jamkazam. I found this conclusion in another thread on the forum.

I am hopeful that I will be able to reduce latency with an audio device that has its own ASIO driver. I believe Focusrite and MOTU have ASIO drivers. Probably Steinberg too.

Can you recommend one?
Thanks

MOTU M2 or Prosonus 96k ... I've used them both... Very low latencies.

[Steven Minzer]

Thanks, StuartR, for the recommendations.
I found these Models on the web:
MOTU M2 2x2 USB-C Audio Interface
PreSonus Studio 24c 2x2 USB Type-C

I like the fact that they both have USB C, the Scarlet i2i having USB 2. USB C may be unnecessarily for JK, but my PC supports it, so I may as well take advantage of it,
Looking at the specs of the two interfaces, there is not much difference that I see. The M2 has a power switch, which I guess is a good thing, but I don’t run the PC on battery. The meters for monitoring gain/volume settings appear to be a bit different. But is it significant?. I’m leaning toward the M2.
Which would you choose?

[Steven Minzer]

I could not find the MOTU M2 online, but did find the PreSonus Studio 24C and purchased it. Setup and ASIO driver installation was a piece of cake. Ditto for the Jamkazam add gear. I set up a private JK session, with the default attributes of the driver (Block Size = 16, the lowest value) and jamkazam (Audio interface Frame Size = 2.5 ms) and we had no glitches or problem. Sound was great. My access latency was 4.4 ms. I played around with the Block Size and Frame Size values to see if it would impact latency, but it did not, which I don’t understand.

Thanks, StuartR, for getting me through this. I am wondering what is your latency with the Presonus AudioBox 96? I have a friend who plays acoustic bass with a pickup. He only needs one mic input for talking. I am wondering if you get more than the additional input with the more expensive audio interface.

[StuartR]

I could not find the MOTU M2 online, but did find the PreSonus Studio 24C and purchased it. Setup and ASIO driver installation was a piece of cake. Ditto for the Jamkazam add gear. I set up a private JK session, with the default attributes of the driver (Block Size = 16, the lowest value) and jamkazam (Audio interface Frame Size = 2.5 ms) and we had no glitches or problem. Sound was great.  My access latency was 4.4 ms. I played around with the Block Size and Frame Size values to see if it would impact latency, but it did not, which I don’t understand.

Thanks, StuartR, for getting me through this. I am wondering what is your latency with the Presonus AudioBox 96? I have a friend who plays acoustic bass with a pickup. He only needs one mic input for talking. I am wondering if you get more than the additional input with the more expensive audio interface.

If I remember it had just about as good a latency as the MOTU. It has an additional front panel Mixer control that needs to be set fully CCW for JK use or you won't hear any audio from other session players. I'm only mentioning this because that bit me for a while until I realized it was set fully CW.