• Registered: 2011-07-14
  • Posts: 4

Topic: I want HIGHER sample buffer. Yes:HIGHER LATENCY

My Presonus Firestudio just died. After much deliberation I bought a Fireface UC, quite excited about the low latency promise and the move from Firewire to USB.
I had read in the manual that it could adjust buffers up to 8192 samples.
I thought: 'Great, that will really help when I mix a heavy project that was struggling on my Firestudio's max of 4096 samples.

Now that all is installed, it appears that maximum buffer I can set whilst working at 48khz is 2048.
Ouch. My project can't work at all now. Am I misunderstanding something? Is there no way to access this higher sample buffer settings at 48khz? If this is the case, then what a huge dissappointment. I pray that a driver update could somehow offer me this or that I am simply misunderstanding something.

Can anyone help?

Thank you.
Nolan

  • Registered: 2011-01-25
  • Posts: 85

Re: I want HIGHER sample buffer. Yes:HIGHER LATENCY

You're joking right?

  • Registered: 2011-07-14
  • Posts: 4

Re: I want HIGHER sample buffer. Yes:HIGHER LATENCY

Do you mean, 'Why the hell does this guy want higher latency?'
Or is there something I am missing here?

Here's the thing: I don't like higher latency. Obviously.
But in a project where I am at the final stages of mixing, I have Nebula and other plugs gobbling up huge amounts of resources on my Q6600. So the project won't run unless I have higher latencies (since the audio becomes less 'cpu intensive' with higher latencies.
As I explained, the project worked with my Firestudio at 4096 sample buffer.
I managed to live with the 'playback start' delay since all would play in sync once it got going.
It was workable.

On my new FF400 UC I can not seem to set buffer to 4096 or 8192 if I am working at 48khz.
I seem to only get that at DS or QS with higher sampling rates.

What I am after is a helpful response or advice.

  • From: New Milford , CT USA
  • Registered: 2007-05-01
  • Posts: 347

Re: I want HIGHER sample buffer. Yes:HIGHER LATENCY

Hi,
What software are you using? If your on Windows you might try switch the driver to direct sound or MME which will be a much higher buffer than ASIO but depending on your software you may be limited to 16bit.48k only.
It would seem easiest to me to just freeze/bounce tracks in your projects that you are not actively editing in order to free up resources on your system.
Higher buffers will only make so much difference if you system is older and slow or your project is really that large of a hit on the CPU.
If you have a newer system then freezing/bouncing is a very fast process.

Thanks Chris

Chris Ludwig | ADK Pro Audio
www.adkproaudio.com
https://www.facebook.com/adkmg

ChrisADK's Website

  • vinark
  • DAW Mastermind
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2009-06-05
  • Posts: 2,779

Re: I want HIGHER sample buffer. Yes:HIGHER LATENCY

The difference in performance might be firewire vs usb, not the buffers. Here with PCI I see very very little difference above 1024.

Vincent, Amsterdam
https://soundcloud.com/thesecretworld
BFpro fs, 2X HDSP9652 ADI-8AE, 2X HDSP9632
  • Registered: 2011-07-14
  • Posts: 4

Re: I want HIGHER sample buffer. Yes:HIGHER LATENCY

Thanks all.

Chris. You speak alot of sense. I was avoiding freezing due to certain UAD plugs not playing nice with ADC (freezes would go out of sync). Good old bouncing/rendering works though, and I have improved my situation this way (as you have suggested). I am on Cubase 6.

Thanks Vincent for your point.

The message I feel here is that  I need to move on to an i5 or i7.
It's been a long time coming.

Thanks again.
Nolan