Latency Problem - Any suggestions regarding external sound cards?

yes an external soundcard would help a bunch.  Even a moderately priced one would make a world of difference

Ok you said you had a laptop, so the best advice I can give you is USB and a USB interface.  Now you mention latency but you make no mention of what you want to record or how many inputs.
 
Ok for the best USB drivers that I have used, this is in terms of latency and stability, the prize has to go to Lexicon and their U22 range or their U42 range.  the 22 has 2 inputs and the u42 4.  What I really liked about the U42's and 22's is the ability to change the priority of the device.  This is in turn allowed you to decrease the latency.  I used mine for Guitar Rig 4, it was really great for this I could play the guitar rig 4, nothing else and I felt no noticable latency.  The only problem with this device is the preamps are ****.  They don't start to work until the last 6db of the trim.
 
At the moment I am using an Ultralite 3 by Motu, this is a hybrid device meaning you can use it either as USB device or a firewire device.  The latency on this device is not as good as the Lexicon but the two included pre amps coupled with on board DSP make up for the latency.  If you have a lot of outboard gear, go this way.
 
Of course Roland now have a couple of USB audio interfaces, most noteably the OCTO CORE.  I haven't used this device but most people here that I have read and they use it are happy but I am not happy with the plastic build of this device and I am conviced that buying audio interfaces with 8 preamps is not a good way to go.  It is better to have the option to add different flavours of preamps like I do with my Motu device.
 
Finally remember that most interface manufactures use the same brand of converter chip and 24 bit is not 24 bit.  This means the amount of headroom your conveter chipset has.  The Lexicon have a dynmaic range of 105 i think, 24 bit is suppose to be 144db.  The motu device does not even list their converter range but I think it is around 110-114db.  The golden conveter chips are around 118db this is the RME stuff and they too do a USB interface but remember their chipsets that they use are te same as the MOTU units.
 
Confused don't be afraid to ask me any more questions. 

What kind of price range are you looking for and I'll be able to make better suggestions

Mickey_R


Under $300?

Ok that leves about 3 options.  The Lexicon I.Onix U22, which you would pick up for around $300 http://www.lexiconpro.com/product.php?id=154, The Presonus Audiobox http://www.presonus.com/products/Detail.aspx?ProductId=53 also around $300 and NI Komplete Audio 6 http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/products/producer/komplete-audio-6/ this retails for $389.
 
My opinon is if you are not going to record with the device and you are just going use it to get sound out into whatever your monitoring with, then go for the Lexicon.  The build quality of this device is excellent.
 
If you need some preamps have a look at the NI device I have not used it but it looks good.  The Presonus box I would give a miss. 

Wait a minute... you are using Tascam 1800...? IF you are using that...

What RPM is your harddrive? IF it is 5400 most likely THAT is your problem and it has nothing to do with the Tascam.

Rob

EDIT: IF you have the Tascam hooked up to your laptop then you need to disable your onboard audio in the bios. That would cause MANY issues exactly like what you are describing.

I subscribed to this thread so I can stay on top of where you are at. Maybe I can help you get it going without spending any money.

Mickey_R


Thanks. I have the problem even when I am not using the Tascam.

Yeah, my HD is 5400.

Do you suggest getting a 7200 HD?

Yes, get a 7200 rpm hard drive and your problems will most likely go away. All of them associated with a 5400 RPM HD will go away for sure. IF there are any issues after swapping I will gladly help. But in my experience, that is your problem and swapping will fix the issue.

Rob

A 5400 RPM hard drive is just not fast enough to properly stream audio. Especially when using samples. IF you're Laptop can have a 2nd hard drive on it. It MIGHT work to have all audio data (including samples) on a 2nd 7200 "Audio/Sample" drive. The you can still use the 5400 as the OS drive.

In the future, never buy a 5400 hard drive again, not even for the OS drive. They are no good for your needs.

I don't want to be the downer here but I have run a small mix off a 5400 external hardrive before (I have an i5 HP Laptop), the person suggesting the 7200 hard drive is hopefully correct.
 
Is the hard drive you ordered to be fitted into the computer because if it is not and you plan to connect through a USB 2 port you still might run into some problems.  I at the moment run a second hard drive (7200) off my laptop through the E-sata port and I have not run into problems.
 
Look let us know if you are still running into problems, or have any questions I would be glad to help, this is not to say that the poster who has given you the information about the 7200 hard drive is wrong, I hope he has got it right, I should have thought of this myself but because I have not run into this problem in a long time it did not even occur to me.
 
Peace

I ordered an internal  gb 7200 sataI am going to swap out the existing 5400. Now if I can just locate the OS disc...

Thanks for all the help.  I'll keep you posted.

I can't help wondering what did you think the Tascam 1800 is when you bought it?? :o)

An interface not a sound card

don”t think to a USB device...try to find a firewire audio interface...audio works better under the firewire protocol.

I think the main deal with USB is that since it can be shared, you can have issues. So always put your USB interface on it's own USB hub/bridge. I use a firewire interface and it worked great. I currently use the Vstudio over USB and it works great. 

Good hardware will work over either protocol.

I've read articles that were pro for both. One said firewire has less protocol overhead and the other said USB has a higher sampling rate. Meh. As long as I plug it in, all the interfaces work, there are no drop outs, I don't care how I got it connected to my computer ;)

John T


Isn't the hard drive a bit of a red herring here? Of course, it will overall be better for audio purposes, but one thing it won't make any difference to at all is latency.

The hard drive has everything to do with latency, considering it is the slowest part of the computer. No matter what hard drive you get it's still the slowest part. Granted, it doesn't need to be as fast as the CPU and Ram but when the RPMs are so low, it becomes unusable. Sure, you can get away with a few tracks on a 5400 RPM but most samples today require a 7200 RPM drive minimum. When you load a project and or a softh synth and you are waiting for things to load, that is you waiting for the base part of that sampled instrument to get from the hard drive into the ram. The rest is streamed from the hard drive to the ram as needed. With the size of sampled instruments today it's impossible to completely load some of them. Such as orchestral string libraries. Some are so big you buy them on a hard drive and couldn't possibly load them into ram. Nothing short of a military computer's hardware can even see enough ram to come close. Streaming will be around for some time to come.

Someday ram will merge with hard drives and even SSDrives will be ill relevant. That is a ways down the road because of the amount of data you can store on a hard drive and comparably how small ram is in current hardware configurations. The software (windows, etc...) is well ahead of the hardware. But eventually the size capability of ram will make the slower configurations obsolete. Will it be called ram? Probably not because it will also store data so it won't be ram anymore.

Hope this helps you understand a little better how audio on a computer works,

Rob

EDIT: I would like to throw in some facts about USB. It is slightly faster than firewire BUT it still doesn't handle the smaller packets of "cut in" audio as well as firewire does. Unless something has changed in the recent years that I am unaware of. Does this mean that USB sucks? Absolutely not. USB 2.0 is a solid choice for audio. If you are only doing small projects and obviously price is an issue or we'd be talking an HD system not USB or Firewire, USB will be just fine for you. In general, firewire is a better choice BUT not as often as one would think. Roland is a wonderful company. I have no doubt that it's drivers are solid. And even if they aren't 100% they patch the most important things pretty quick. Think about all the other companies out there in Software Audio Land... and who of them patches things the best and quick? Seriously, how many of them can you trust, how many do things like Cakewalk does?  They are musicians, they take bug reports, they listen to feedback and reply to posts. Phone support if you need it. And Roland, do I even need to tell anyone how long and how amazing Roland equipment has been in the past and I am quite sure will continue in the future. The Audio Drivers for any Roland interface and Sonar X1 are about as compatible as compatible gets I would imagine. And speaking of X1, I trust that my software creator friends down there at Cakewalk are delivering something that I should probably learn. I'll trust them that they thought it out quite well, so I will learn how to play my new instrument. No different then getting a new sample library is. First ya have to learn to play it. Granted, I've already learned to play Sonar, more than once, and I will do it again if they really think it's best and then judge for myself.

Sorry for the large post, but I felt it should be said,

Rob

I would agree with BenMM that a second audio drive is a smart thing. Although with small projects you will be ok on the OS drive. Of course this is assuming you never let it get over 50% full and the laptop isn't used for new large footprint games. Such as Wow, Starcraft2. They will eat up hard drive space hampering performance.

The optimal setup would be, have an OS drive, a sample drive and a audio drive. Keep the audio drive only for current projects then lastly a master storage and backup drive that is a duplicate of the master storage. This would be a rig that a professional should be using. Having a back up drive to protect your projects from loss is very important. Of course a Raid Array would still be the best but now we are talking a lot of money and looking into an HD system would start to be something the person should be considering. But now we are completely into pro level with the price tag to boot.

SO my advice would be, once you get the system up and running without any glitches the first extra HD should be a back up drive. Then another audio drive. Get in the habit of backing up and one day, if reading this is what gets you to routinely back up your audio projects, you will thank me. You do want an audio drive though, asap. If recording your own audio and mixing with samples and the projects will entail more the 5 instruments, without any doubt, put that extra strain on an audio drive separate from the OS. Your hard drives will not only perform better, they will last longer.

It's all about how much money you can, and or, are willing to spend and how serious you want to be in the home studio world.

Rob

Got laid off so that set me back a bit. Working again so i'm back on track.
 
Replaced my internal HD w/ a 7200 rpm drive, picked up a NI Komplete 6 and got an external ESATA drive (a thermaltake black X - niffy little thing it is) for my soft-synths. All have made a big improvement. Soft-synths still degrade if i try to use too many at once, but overall things are much better.  Thanks for the advice and guidance. I really appreciate it. Now if i can just finds some time to make music...