• From: Sydney, Australia
  • Registered: 2010-10-24
  • Posts: 33

Topic: Has anyone moved to a FF 800 from Apogee Ensemble or MOTU 896mk3?

Hi Guys,

I am looking at the FF800 to use with Logic Pro 9 on a Mac Pro.

I am wondering what kind of round trip latency does the FF800 deliver at 64 and 32 samples? I want to monitor through Logic in some cases (using unusual vocal effects!) and also use some virtual instruments such as BFD, which need really low latency to respond well.

Would love some feedback on this from existing users... or even the figures from Logic's panel showing round trip latency at these buffers.

Cheers and thanks,
Mike

yeloop's Website

  • From: Sydney, Australia
  • Registered: 2010-10-24
  • Posts: 33

Re: Has anyone moved to a FF 800 from Apogee Ensemble or MOTU 896mk3?

Hi Guys,

I am making a decision this week on whether to go with a MOTU 896mk3, an Apogee Ensemble, or the Fireface 800, with my Mac Pro.

I use Logic Pro 9 and it's really important that my interface runs at very low latencies, for both monitoring through Logic directly (adding vocal effects etc) and also for running virtual instruments such as BFD.

Has anyone compared the FF800 with these other interfaces, or made the move to the FF800 from either of them?

Really keen for some feedback from happy (and unhappy - if there are any!) users, to get a sense of whether this is the right decision!

Cheers and thanks very much,
Mike

yeloop's Website

  • From: Sydney, Australia
  • Registered: 2010-10-24
  • Posts: 33

Re: Has anyone moved to a FF 800 from Apogee Ensemble or MOTU 896mk3?

Hi again guys,

Sorry to ask so many questions about the Fireface 800! Thanks for being patient!

Just wondering if anyone is using one of these with a Mackie Control interface? I am using Logic Pro with my Mackie Control, but want to also be able to control the direct levels when I'm monitoring directly through the FF800, using the faders on my Mackie Control.

Does the Mackie Control work smoothly with TotalMix?

Also, is it easy to switch between the Mackie Control controlling TotalMix, and controlling Logic's mixer?

Would love any feedback or info from anyone who is using this setup!

Cheers and thanks!
Mike

yeloop's Website

  • DiScO
  • AD/DA expert
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2008-05-21
  • Posts: 76

Re: Has anyone moved to a FF 800 from Apogee Ensemble or MOTU 896mk3?

Hi Mike,

I originally ordered an Ensemble but when I got it I was not that impressed (it was noisy). It didn't help that I got sent a refurb having paid the new price for it so perhaps it had problems, but the FF800 that replaced it is a truly excellent piece of tech. I did have a Mackie control, but found that it was not that important whilst running total mix. I dabbled rather quickly so can't give you an honest feedback on that. What I can say, is with the new firmware and driver on Mac things seem fine, very fine on Snow Leopard. I'm just about to test the recording latency and adjust where necessary, so I'll get back on that. From experience, I would say go for the FF800 without question. I have a Motu 828MKII on the PC which feeds into the ADAT connections of the FF800 and recently it is flawless. I can't vouch for software monitoring because I don't use it with total mix however, if you run the FF800 on it's own bus and your Mac Pro is running nice then I don't see why it would be a problem.

*MacBookProEarly2011*13" Core i7*OSX 10.7.2 *Logic 9.1.6* 4GB RAM *FF800(3.06 / 2.77)*
  • From: Sydney, Australia
  • Registered: 2010-10-24
  • Posts: 33

Re: Has anyone moved to a FF 800 from Apogee Ensemble or MOTU 896mk3?

DiScO wrote:

Hi Mike,

I originally ordered an Ensemble but when I got it I was not that impressed (it was noisy). It didn't help that I got sent a refurb having paid the new price for it so perhaps it had problems, but the FF800 that replaced it is a truly excellent piece of tech. I did have a Mackie control, but found that it was not that important whilst running total mix. I dabbled rather quickly so can't give you an honest feedback on that. What I can say, is with the new firmware and driver on Mac things seem fine, very fine on Snow Leopard. I'm just about to test the recording latency and adjust where necessary, so I'll get back on that. From experience, I would say go for the FF800 without question. I have a Motu 828MKII on the PC which feeds into the ADAT connections of the FF800 and recently it is flawless. I can't vouch for software monitoring because I don't use it with total mix however, if you run the FF800 on it's own bus and your Mac Pro is running nice then I don't see why it would be a problem.

Hi There,

Thanks for this info. Would love to hear what sort of latency you are getting at 32 or 64 samples!

Are you using Logic? If so, it reports on latency in m/s, in the Preferences - > audio section.

Cheers and thanks,
Mike

yeloop's Website

  • JC28
  • AES/EBU artist
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2007-05-11
  • Posts: 115

Re: Has anyone moved to a FF 800 from Apogee Ensemble or MOTU 896mk3?

Actually, the lowest buffer on the Fireface 400/800 is 48 samples.  It will give you ~5.4ms of RTL (measured using both CEntrance and Sonar).

HTH

Core i7 4770K | 32GB of RAM | Windows 7 Pro (SP1) 64 bit | Cubase 8.5 64 bit | RME FireFace UCX |