Echo Audiofire.

[Hollowcell]

I am planning to grab a new interface for use in a mobile situation. I have done a fair bit of reading and now (mainly due to the converter quality - good ol' AKM ak4620) I am leaning towards the Audiofire 4.

I am wondering what you guys are using outside the studio, and if any of you has had experience with the Audiofire range, or Echo interfaces in general.
Any of you guys using these boxes?

[Doc Jones]

been using an echo layla 24 for over 10 years now. And I still think the converters are top notch on this unit!

[Hollowcell]

Yeah the more I read, the more I find people are very happy with the converters on the Echo stuff - I mean the converters in the Audiofire 2, 4, and some of the 12s are the same as the ones used in the RME-Fireface400.

The only thing is that there are a few complaints about latency, which isn't the best for a live solution to my needs. How is the latency on your card?

[Doc Jones]

no problem there. I routinely run my Echo at 256 buffers which I think equates to about 6ms of latency. Basically not noticeable at all.

[Hollowcell]

Cool, thanks for the feedback Doc. I am actually looking forward to breaking the bonds of the studio!

[Hollowcell]

Got the Audiofire Doc, and the sound of it isn't bad at all. The only thing is I can't seem to get the latency down to what I would really like for a live setup.

On the laptop and in Ableton I am getting the following:
Input Latency: 5.08ms
Output Latency: 5.08ms
Overall Latency: 11.6ms
(these numbers are what Ableton is telling me - the Echo control panel says something much lower, but it just aint so)

Also the numbers above are on quite an intensive set that is running stable at a buffer setting of 128 and at 48k.

Any ideas on how to get this lower? And if any of you other guys are reading this, what kind of latency are you getting within Ableton?

[Doc Jones]

11ms isn't too bad, though I can understand why you would want it lower. I don't think this will make much of a difference, but I run all my audio at 24bit/44.1k. Perhaps try dropping it down to 44.1?

[Hollowcell]

Yep, dropping it down to 44.1 gives me a minimal reduction but I'm still in the 11s. To make matters worse, I put in one of my new sets last night (huge with a heap of VSTs) and I had to put the buffer up again! Live FX will be fine, but live soft-synths just isn't gunna happen.

My laptop is a C2duo XPS1210 with a couple of gig. The only thing I have to look into is what FW chipset it's running.... Bastard thing.

Again, if any of you other guys are running Firewire audio interfaces I'd be keen to hear what kind of latency Ableton is giving you.

EDIT:
Here are the numbers I am getting with the huge set that's running now:
Input Latency: 7.26
Output Latency : 7.26
Total Latency: 14.5

[Hollowcell]

An update for ya Doc... Been trying a number of things this morn before I have to head into work.

I read a few threads regarding something called "ASIO4ALL" saying that they were getting lower latency using that instead of the Echo drivers, so in the face of a possible reformat I decided to put it on; well low and behold the biggest most system hungry Ableton set I have (the set mentioned in the previous post) managed to get down to a very nice 7ms overall latency (that's half when compared with the Echo driver)!

The only trouble I have read about with ASIO4ALL drivers is that some outputs and inputs may be disabled, but as I am not int the studio I can't test that out. For a live situation I would see no trouble in using this driver though.

Here is the link:
http://www.asio4all.com/

[Doc Jones]

Hey HC, I've been gone traveling for the week so i just saw your post. Very interesting that the asio4all drivers work better than echo's!!

But either way i am glad to hear that it is working for you. i would definitely fire an email off to echo support to find out what they think.