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Post by kilroyrock on Aug 23, 2016 6:28:27 GMT -6
So the 16A uses Sabre converters, has 16 I/o and additional 16 adat. pretty much all I need, plus thunderbolt pc drivers.
Has anyone used the thunderbolt pc drivers? PC RTL is 1.9 msec (1.6ms for mac). I'd really like to start building out my 2 bus.
currently using a saffire 56, and the latency keeps me from having it on all the time.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2016 7:58:02 GMT -6
Interesting question. Thought about using Thunderbolt on PC as well. We already have the MOTU 24Ao, which would be able to go along with the 16A and then have the low latencies as well. Right now, we are using it with USB on PC. Works nicely though. The AVB devices OS is very intuitive to use, it works flawlessly for integration of external converters, too, we clock it from the Mytek 8x96 over adat S/MUX, which is our AD converter, and added the Ross Martin Superbeast for monitoring DA conversion. The MOTU firmware does it all flawlessly. For our momentary purposes, it works with it's latencies o.k. om PC, we are able to record voice and instrumental with external pre/DI without hassle. The DAW is more of the showstopper than the MOTU when using too much processing while recording and monitoring too many channels for playback. We bought the 24Ao for feeding our console with 24 channels for mixdown, there higher latency is no problem at all, but it works well for track-by-track recording, if you are a bit careful with processing and latency settings. We use 256 samples low latency at 96kHz for recording. As long as one is used to play live, the latency is marginal for you. The MOTU AVB devices have a great concept and good sound quality. In case of the 24Ao, the sound quality stock is already astonishing. And according to Dan Deurloo, it could even be pushed forward a good step by modding it. AFAIK, the 16A has better ADC than the 24Ai, but a bit inferior DAC, then the 24Ao. No doubt, the whole series has an exceptional price/performance ratio. So, thunderbolt or not, they are cool interfaces, configurable and updateable over web, and in case of the 16A also easily expandable by adding external converters and even another AVB interface with simply connecting it to the 16A's network connector. USB simultaneous channels at 96kHz/88kHz is 32in/32out over USB (double this for single speed!). Thunderbolt will give you more channels than you need if you just connect max 2 AVB devices with direct connect and all interfaces to external converters in use. Unfortunately, i don't know anyone, who uses the Thunderbolt option on PC. We have an ASUS mainboard, capable of Thunderbolt, so i would also like to hear from someone who actually uses this combination...
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Post by kilroyrock on Aug 23, 2016 11:50:30 GMT -6
I am selling my saffire, dbx 160xt, gap comp54, Ibanez hd1500 and a few other things to buy one of these. I already have the onboard thunderbolt expansion card for x99 motherboards so I'm REALLY looking forward to 1.9ms latency. I feel it's a game changer for digital workstations to not have to worry about hearing latency while recording, and can have everything just BE like analog w/ hardware. I expect to have a positive experience with it. I have a headphone amp and big knob for all headphone reasons, and 14+ preamps so I won't need to worry about losing anything on the saffire, except about 6-10ms. I'll just have to use some of the onboard 16i/o to plug in the eleven rack instead of the spdif!
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Post by jdc on Aug 23, 2016 12:13:34 GMT -6
we use two in our studio, with a Svartbox AD/DA for monitoring and even cleaner inputs. We have them linked together via ethernet and USB to the computer. We're about to rearrange our whole set up and after that we'll probably go to thunderbolt. These have been great thus far and no latency recording has been effortless. One of the owners here uses logic while two of us use Pro Tools, occasionally we'll run into some issues loading different presets in the routing matrix, but if you're on a single set up then you should't run in to any problems here. We both units off of a Black Lion Micro Clock MkII and have noticed a significant upgrade to the imaging and depth of the sound field (whether that's placebo or not I'll let others debate). There are certainly other options for a lot more money that probably sound a little better, but for the flexibility/price/ease of use I'd say that if you can't get good results in your space it's not because of the Motu. Would recommend.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2016 13:10:36 GMT -6
Ah, i see. For consideration: Even if your interface is lower latency, this does not mean you do not have to think about latency at all. It heavily depends on your digital signal chain. There is no problem for us to record with 5.6 ms latency setting (or in this ballpark) for recording with inbox cue. If i add specific plugins, say an Acustica nebula-based effect, Klanghelm compressor in HQ mode etc., adding live softsynths, multichannel samplers etc, the audio engine can become unstable with low latency, getting dropouts, while beeing totally OK at higher latency. It must not even depend on the horsepower of your computer alone. Surely, more speed and RAM can minimize issues, but often enough this is in no relation to the problem. Even after optimizing your OS for low latency, let's have a single part of the DAW software or used plugins have a problem, and bang, you can only get away with higher latency setting. There is no such thing like "zero" latency at all in digital world. It's marketing bogus. It simply does not exist. Each and every audio stream needs a buffer and it needs a buffer that is considerably higher than a "realtime" double byte value that the cpu can process in a single instruction clocked in GHz land. Magnetudes higher. And this will not change to become a non-issue you don't have to think about, anytime soon, because no way processing power/speed will increase several magnitudes in forseeable future. Right now, it is actually stuck around 4-5 GHz and parallelization of processing is used to overcome the issue in most applications. So ultralow latency is not unproblematic only because your interface has no problem with it. Whenever an audio buffer is underrun or overflown, things get nasty. No matter, where this happens along the road. A spike in a computer thread due to anything happening in your DAW, non-even balance of the cores, each and every problem that can appear can make latency an issue if one of the audio buffers runs empty or could not take any more samples (buffer overflow) when the following processing can't keep up with it. The lower the latency setting, the worse. Independent of the interface minimum latency. That's what i wanted to express with my remark, that the DAW processing, if fairly heavily used, easily has more to do with the need of higher latency settings, than the interface itself. I consider below 10ms a non-issue, as long as i don't monitor over headphone, and have some oldschool "live-feeling" experience, even as a bass player. Drummers may or may not have already problems with it. EASIEST way ever to never care about latency again is *analog cue*. In fact it's the only one. No (perceivable) latency in the monitoring for the recorded artist at all. At least a magnitude below perceivability i guess, no matter how heavily you send the analog signal thru long runs and (analog) processing. I actually see no real alternative for that at all, if you don't want to think about latency. It solves so many problems at once and is so easy to achieve. Split recorded signal and use analog cue on a mixer, done.
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Post by kilroyrock on Aug 23, 2016 13:31:36 GMT -6
Yeah, right now I use raw signal coming in while tracking. Totally fine, for almost everything. I don't care much about using plugs on the way in. If anything I throw an aux out on the reverb and it's just gonna have some extra pre-delay The saffire 56 sets that up really really easily. What I'd like though is to be able to always have a GSSL or another 2 bus compressor and eq on. I am not even going to worry about ADC issues with plugins. I don't care about recording with plugins. I want to be able to monitor with 1.9ms round trip. in and out. that's 1ms each way. even if I went mic in line out line in monitor out (2 bus chain) that's 4 ms. still okay in my book. Right now that's 15-25 (or more!) with the 12 ms (6 in 6 out) of bus buffer. TB gets rid of that usb nonsense, which is why it gets so low (how lowww can you goooo)
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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2016 13:39:21 GMT -6
PS:Most pres and DIs outs can power 2 inputs like a DAC and a mixers line in, so a simple split cable can already do the job. At least if you use common half-way modern equipment
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Post by kilroyrock on Aug 23, 2016 13:42:51 GMT -6
What I'm going for is a full daw/interface powered I/o so I don't even need to deal with a patch bay
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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2016 15:16:44 GMT -6
Aaaah, i see.
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Post by wiz on Aug 23, 2016 16:16:11 GMT -6
I am on Mac, and use logic
Mine has been running well, and the conversion both ways is really very good.. certainly good enough that I don't think about it.
Its been stable
cheers
Wiz
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Post by jeromemason on Aug 23, 2016 20:45:50 GMT -6
They're incredible interfaces...... for the $$$ I don't know of anything that could get near these. I've had mine for a good while and it's solid as a rock.
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Post by tasteliketape on Aug 23, 2016 20:55:36 GMT -6
+1 on stability, also on the Motu site they released new PC thunderbolt drivers end of July
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Post by kilroyrock on Aug 24, 2016 6:37:29 GMT -6
That's it. I'm sold. surprisingly the Ibanez HD1500 delay was the first piece of kit to sell!
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Post by dandeurloo on Aug 24, 2016 10:42:45 GMT -6
Yeah, I have had mine since they came out. They work great. I run mine off of Mac with thundebolt. Very low latency.
I highly modded mine, But they sound pretty good stock. I would recommend a BLA micro clock III to help them sound even better.
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Post by jeromemason on Aug 24, 2016 10:52:05 GMT -6
Yeah, I have had mine since they came out. They work great. I run mine off of Mac with thundebolt. Very low latency. I highly modded mine, But they sound pretty good stock. I would recommend a BLA micro clock III to help them sound even better. +1 I'm not saying that the clock inside this converter is bad in no way, but that BLA Micro MK3 clock made a really nice difference for me and was enough of a difference for me to keep it.
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Post by kilroyrock on Aug 24, 2016 11:16:09 GMT -6
Yeah, I have had mine since they came out. They work great. I run mine off of Mac with thundebolt. Very low latency. I highly modded mine, But they sound pretty good stock. I would recommend a BLA micro clock III to help them sound even better. what did you mod? <stares into the great wormhole of customization>
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Post by wiz on Aug 24, 2016 15:42:05 GMT -6
Yeah, I have had mine since they came out. They work great. I run mine off of Mac with thundebolt. Very low latency. I highly modded mine, But they sound pretty good stock. I would recommend a BLA micro clock III to help them sound even better. +1 I'm not saying that the clock inside this converter is bad in no way, but that BLA Micro MK3 clock made a really nice difference for me and was enough of a difference for me to keep it. Hey jerome any chance you can run a mix out of the 16A and back in, with and without the micro clock ... pretty please? 8) cheers Wiz
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Post by jeromemason on Aug 25, 2016 9:37:19 GMT -6
Hey jerome any chance you can run a mix out of the 16A and back in, with and without the micro clock ... pretty please? 8) cheers Wiz Yeah I can..... The only thing is that you're not going to hear what it's doing on the D/A monitoring...... Shoot me a link to download one of your mixes and we'll put it through.
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Post by wiz on Aug 25, 2016 15:28:30 GMT -6
Hey jerome any chance you can run a mix out of the 16A and back in, with and without the micro clock ... pretty please? 8) cheers Wiz Yeah I can..... The only thing is that you're not going to hear what it's doing on the D/A monitoring...... Shoot me a link to download one of your mixes and we'll put it through. Thanks bud, I know what you mean.. but its as close as I can possibly get to a demo... 8) will post a link thanks again Cheers Wiz
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Post by Deleted on Aug 25, 2016 15:50:43 GMT -6
...good point. IMO if people hear a significant improvement of their system with an external clock, most probably the main point of it is the improvement of the DACs conversion. ADC should sound better clocked internally (as pointed out and technically explained by Dan Lavry in this whole external clock discussion). All in all, your whole system can give you better results, if you *hear* things better, also while recording with maybe decreased ADC conversion quality. Exception may or may not be mediocre or worse clocks. This said, the best solution to me is to use an ADC with good clock as the master, which we did when using the Mytek with the 24Ao or jdc most probably did with the svartbox in his MOTU AVB setup. Proper ADC clocking IS important of course. So why do people still clock externally? This may have to do with DAC clocking especially if you use many channels for analog downmix. I can imagine the advantages of better clocking of many DACs could outweigh or surpass the negative effects of external clocking on ADCs at a certain point. For me, best solution would always be using a ADC with a very good internal clock and let it slave the rest, so you have at least one quality ADC running with completely uncompromised quality, so you have at least these channels in the absolute best conversion loop quality you can get with your equipment. Sure bet, i guess, you can't do anything wrong with this strategy. This all said, we are talking already different solutions of clocking that most probably will yield very high quality results anyhow, except you are doing something plain wrong. I experience what wiz brought to the point: It certainly is conversion that is good enough you don't have to think about it anymore while you are working with it... I already thought about upgrading our system with a svartbox, but for now we are completely happy with the Mytek for ADC and clocking master. Maybe at a later point. (if there wasn't import customs plus 19% taxes on the converter and transportation, i might have pulled the trigger already, i guess...)
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Post by kilroyrock on Aug 26, 2016 20:53:43 GMT -6
Do people still sweat the big Ben? I haven't heard any mention of it in years
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Post by subspace on Aug 27, 2016 9:14:35 GMT -6
A year and a half on the 16A now, Thunderbolt to a MacBook Pro. Was previously monitoring via analog cue mixes, switched to the wi-fi controlled DSP in the MOTU for artist controlled mixes. Outputs 1-2 return to the desk for monitoring which in turn feeds the cue out > L-R input on a Presonus HP6 in the tracking room. Outputs 3-8 feed the HP6 individual channel inputs for 3 stereo or 6 mono custom mixes. Works great for tracking. Overdubbing can go either way, using that set-up or just monitoring output 1-2 with low buffer settings through LPX/PT12, depending on if we're doing a lot of punch-ins. I'm glad to have the wi-fi controlled artist mixes at tracking, but having the DAW work the way a recorder should on a punch is sure nice to get back to.
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Post by winetree on Sept 9, 2016 0:19:06 GMT -6
I'm thinking of getting a MOTU 16a. I have a lot of questions of how to integrate it into my system. A lot to post. If a 16a user is willing to answer some questions, Please P.M. me with your phone number and I'll call you. Robert
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Post by wiz on Sept 9, 2016 0:30:27 GMT -6
I'm thinking of getting a MOTU 16a. I have a lot of questions of how to integrate it into my system. A lot to post. If a 16a user is willing to answer some questions, Please P.M. me with your phone number and I'll call you. Robert PM me yours and I will Skype you.. Got about 20 mins before I gotta get ready for a gig cheers Wiz
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Post by wiz on Sept 9, 2016 0:39:14 GMT -6
IF no one gets to you.. I can call you via Skype tomorrow my time, maybe 16 hours from now.. costs me only 3cents a minute to call anywhere in the world.. just shoot me a PM
cheers
Wiz
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