If you want to further lower the latency from the Focusrite stock drivers, as mentioned above, ASIO4ALL is pretty good. If you want to start using a DAW like Reaper, asio drivers do a bit better.
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USB Audio Interface..school me please.
- Thread starter mmbongo
- Start date
ASIO4all is a workaround for when you don't have ASIO drivers or they don't work with your hardware. All of the major manufacturers have good device specific ASIO drivers. Don't install it unless you need it.
It's honestly been many years since I've used Focusrite, but their native ASIO drivers used to give me grief. I think the stock drivers will work fine for the OP.
I have an USB cable stright in to bass, but it also gives a bit of a latency, so i don't think there is such a thing - without.
I'm confused. Audio Interface actually is an external Sound card. if you are using an internal Audio interface you just need to adjust Block size or buffer size to reduce the latency same as Scarlett solo or any external Audio interfaces.
Admittedly, haven't read the posts, but I practice with headphones a LOT. Hope this helps.
You have a good mixer. I'd skip the USB. I have something similar, no USB, and do the following:
Zoom B1ON on the floor. It's a good enough for practice representation of what pedals and such you will be using live. Also, it's a tuner, it's a drum machine, it's a looper. pretty bare bones on the latter 2 items, but for practice it's fine. Anyways, Out of the Zoom and into one of the mixer channels.
If you don't have the zoom, you could acquire one used for cheap i'm sure. I got one years ago as a "B Stock" from some store on Reverb or maybe ebay. I fell like I gave $30 for it if I remember right...
I really like the Zoom but something else would probably work as well. Usual YMMV disclaimer here. If it was me I'd try what I owned before buying, so there is that....
Your board supports headphones, so you should be good there. It also has a 1/4" mono out I believe, so if you want to run that t your amp, you can. I have a little 90s vintage PV Minx 110 that lives in my practice room and works great for that....
you should be able to 1/8" out of your PC to the "tape in" on your board which will get your play along stuff in the mix.
Hope this helps!!
Best,
WF
You have a good mixer. I'd skip the USB. I have something similar, no USB, and do the following:
Zoom B1ON on the floor. It's a good enough for practice representation of what pedals and such you will be using live. Also, it's a tuner, it's a drum machine, it's a looper. pretty bare bones on the latter 2 items, but for practice it's fine. Anyways, Out of the Zoom and into one of the mixer channels.
If you don't have the zoom, you could acquire one used for cheap i'm sure. I got one years ago as a "B Stock" from some store on Reverb or maybe ebay. I fell like I gave $30 for it if I remember right...
I really like the Zoom but something else would probably work as well. Usual YMMV disclaimer here. If it was me I'd try what I owned before buying, so there is that....
Your board supports headphones, so you should be good there. It also has a 1/4" mono out I believe, so if you want to run that t your amp, you can. I have a little 90s vintage PV Minx 110 that lives in my practice room and works great for that....
you should be able to 1/8" out of your PC to the "tape in" on your board which will get your play along stuff in the mix.
Hope this helps!!
Best,
WF
Forget about letency. You don't run your bass signal into the converter, then back out for monitoring. You use direct monitoring. Since you have a mixer, you can direct monitor with the mixer. This way the latency in the usb device happens before you hear it or use the signal. The only time latency is an issue is if you are playing VSTi midi instruments.
Some USB devices have direct monitoring built in through a mix dial that says direct/usb and mixes the two signals. I don't know if focusrite uses that, but m-audio does. It saves you a lot of hassle.
If your USB device doesn't have that option, just run your computer audio out(usb device or not) into your mixer's stereo in, and put your bass signal on another mono channel. Plug your headphones or speakers into the mixer out/headphone out. Problem solved.
Good luck!
Some USB devices have direct monitoring built in through a mix dial that says direct/usb and mixes the two signals. I don't know if focusrite uses that, but m-audio does. It saves you a lot of hassle.
If your USB device doesn't have that option, just run your computer audio out(usb device or not) into your mixer's stereo in, and put your bass signal on another mono channel. Plug your headphones or speakers into the mixer out/headphone out. Problem solved.
Good luck!
this is exactly what I was going to suggest. If you're not recording put the computer and the bass into a mixer and then headphones from there. I pretty much do the same thing but I don't use headphones, the output goes to a speaker
When you are recording, monitor through the mixer, but split your bass signal (DI Box) and send an xlr directly into USB device. You will have to correct the latency in the recording after, but you won't have to hear it while you record.
I use a Behringer U-Phoria UMC202HD audio interface on my computer and I like it a lot. It has 2 channel channels with inputs that will take either 1/4" or balanced plugs. Push/button to adjust channel preamp to either line or mic levels. Also has Left and Right 1/4" outputs on back to hook up to any other electronic. It hooks up to the computer via USB cable and that's all I use on mine. I have set it as my default sound on my computer for both recording and playback as it is capable of far better sound than either the built in sound card or the separate sound card I used to use.
I typically plug my mic into one channel and my bass in the other and use my headphones to listen to everything. I can play music on my computer through a number of different programs (Media Player, Riffstation, Groove music, i-tunes, etc.) and play along with it at the same time. If I want to play along with the music or record as I play along, I'll hit the "direct monitor" button which sync's my bass and vocals up perfectly with whatever music I'm playing. I'll record on Audacity (freebie) or Tracktion 7 (free with the UMC202HD) DAW's and do any mixing, effects, etc. from there.
Because of that direct monitor button, I can easily stack more tracks as needed. I'll can easily just cut another track with guitar, keyboards, or more vocals. Good news is that it creates two tracks at a time if you use both channels. They also make 4 and 8 channel models, but since this does sound-on-sound perfectly, if you're just recording yourself, 2 is all you need.
This is the second one I have had. I used their earlier UMC202 which would record at 48KHz (DVD Quality). This one records in 24-bit 192KHz (Studio Quality). I got the second one because I had a sound problem on my computer that I couldn't isolate with diagnostics. Bought the new one and it didn't make any difference. Then found out a Windows update had caused the problem and Behringer came out with a new driver that fixed it. The price on this one was almost 50% below what I paid for the first. You can get it on Amazon right now for $59.99:
https://www.amazon.com/Behringer-UM...pID=41LnZHDgziL&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch
One other nice thing about it is that you can turn on the 48v phantom power if you're using a mic that needs either batteries or phantom power. A lot of the really nice recording mics use that. This is just a sweet set-up at a really low price, and I recommend it!
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okcrum
in your chest
Rather than spend money on a low latency interface you wouldn't need unless you were recording, feed the audio you want to play along with from the PC into the mixer you use for your bass (usually on a "tape" or other line level input), and listen on the mixer's headphone output.
The PCs I use here have around 10-11 ms of latency through the motherboard audio chain, which is workable within most DAWs. Since they are 192k/24 bit capable, it's not hard to live with. I'd also add that I use Linux Studio, which has a low latency version of the OS. There should also be some latency compensation in the connection app used, for example JACK.
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I'm gonna +1 on hooking the PC into the mixer. If your main focus in practice and NOT recording, run the PC into the mixer using a 1/8th to 1/4 adapter (or 2 for stereo) and run your bass into the mixer. There should be a headphone jack on your mixer.
ZERO latency issues this way without the need of buying more equipment.
ZERO latency issues this way without the need of buying more equipment.
If you have an iPhone or iPad, I use an iRig HD ($99) and JamUp Pro ($19.99) and have everything I need to practice in good sound quality and without latency in my gigbag at all times.
It sounds like you were using the wrong cable between your computer and mixer. You needed to use a Y cable that is stereo. It should have a 1/8 inch male stereo plug on one end, and two RCA male plugs on the other end. Then you use adapters to adapt that RCA to 1/4 inch male which plugs into your mixer. The white goes into channel one which is panned all the way left, and the red goes into Channel 2 which is panned all the way right. Your bass goes into Channel 3. You can pan that to the center. That is the exact same setup I use, probably with the same Behringer mixer that you have, and it works fine.
The only reason to use an audio interface is if you want to record. If you just want to hear the music and your bass with zero latency in headphones ... I just use the headphone jack on my bass amp and run the music into my Aux input on the bass amp -- control the volume of the music with the volume control on mp3 player or CD player or whatever and control the volume of the bass with gain or the vol on the instrument. No mixer required and I get all my bass amp EQ and built in FX in the headphones along with a clean music from the mp3 player.
Alternatively (if your amp doesn't have an Aux in) run the headphone out of your amp to a mixer and the mp3 player to the mixer and use the headphone out of the mixer. No headphone out from your amp? Then use something like a sansamp or the cheap behringer copy to get your bass amp tones simulated into the mixer.
Alternatively (if your amp doesn't have an Aux in) run the headphone out of your amp to a mixer and the mp3 player to the mixer and use the headphone out of the mixer. No headphone out from your amp? Then use something like a sansamp or the cheap behringer copy to get your bass amp tones simulated into the mixer.
Might want to check the channel eq as well as (if any) pre amps that may need to be turned up. You should be able to hear it as if they were playing in front of you.
Pretty much. The drivers will come with the Scarlett. One thing I would add is that you will want to use the scarletts mixing software to monitor with, as that should provide you with zero latency.When I record, I never monitor my bass through the DAW, I just use the monitor from the software mixer that came with my interface. That eliminates any latency.
They are usually set up as software mixers and are pretty easy to figure out.
Well it's definitely not a cable issue. Cables and adapters are like second nature to me.
However, I did not hook it to my mixer like you are describing. I used channel 11/12 so maybe that's the issue? Here's the mixer I have and the input jacks I used are circled:
In this instance channel 11 would be left and 12 would be right (in a perfect world). With the split of left, right and two diff channels, it may be that one channel was up and the other not. In this case I would turn both channels up or use regular channels for the split to have more control over the sound.
***EDIT***
I just realized that both channels were controlled by one set of knobs. Not sure why you would be getting a compressed sound unless one of the effects were on on those particular channels. In any case I would try hooking into channel 1, 2 and see if the issue is still there. Again this will help with sound as you will have control over the bass, mids, and treble on the regular channels vs the combo channel.
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I'll mess around with it some tonight. When listening to music through the mixer I just lost all stereo separation and it sounded overly compressed so I figured the mixer was just sub par, or the headphone output was not stereo. Having the music quality is priority to me, as I listen to a lot of music this way. I'm using some fairly high dollar Sennheiser headphones, and the sound card I use now (a PCI-E internal card) has a 600 ohm headphone amp built into it so I'm used to hearing everything plugged directly into that headphone amp.
