Anyone using a RME Fireface 800 on LIVE 8?

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
VitjaB
Posts: 15
Joined: Sun Dec 09, 2012 10:09 am

Re: Anyone using a RME Fireface 800 on LIVE 8?

Post by VitjaB » Thu Mar 21, 2013 12:15 am

I have a question...
I have a very little experience with things like DAWs and sound cards.
In Live 8.2.2+Fireface 800 I have a horrible delay if I use external gear (for example delay effect) on Return tracks.
And I have the same problem with direct monitoring in Live. I'm not sure how many ms, but is enough to hear that first delay repeat is out beat. I would love to have an option to use external gear within Live session.

Any suggestions?

abletoon
Posts: 70
Joined: Thu Oct 25, 2007 11:52 pm
Location: London

Re: Anyone using a RME Fireface 800 on LIVE 8?

Post by abletoon » Thu Mar 21, 2013 12:55 am

check in the preferences that you're actually using the drivers for the FF800.
also Mac or PC?

fishmonkey
Posts: 4478
Joined: Wed Oct 24, 2007 4:50 am

Re: Anyone using a RME Fireface 800 on LIVE 8?

Post by fishmonkey » Thu Mar 21, 2013 2:18 am

VitjaB wrote:I have a question...
I have a very little experience with things like DAWs and sound cards.
In Live 8.2.2+Fireface 800 I have a horrible delay if I use external gear (for example delay effect) on Return tracks.
And I have the same problem with direct monitoring in Live. I'm not sure how many ms, but is enough to hear that first delay repeat is out beat. I would love to have an option to use external gear within Live session.

Any suggestions?
there will also be additional latency involved in sending the audio out and getting it back from an external device. the standard way of dealing with it in Live is to use the External Audio Effect device and configure it to account for the latency.

your sample rate and buffer size will also affect the latency.

VitjaB
Posts: 15
Joined: Sun Dec 09, 2012 10:09 am

Re: Anyone using a RME Fireface 800 on LIVE 8?

Post by VitjaB » Thu Mar 21, 2013 10:51 am

In preferences/Audio/Driver type, I use Core Audio.
Is this a problem?
Should I use FF driver instead? And if, how can I do this?
I don't remember any special installation of my FF800 on mac. Of curse I downloaded drivers for FF, but maybe I should make
some adjustments in preferences/audio-MIDI setup?
As I said, I'm really bad at this :oops:

About my mac: 2 GHz Intel Core 2 duo, 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, Mac OS X 10.4.11.
about Live: 8.2.2. suit

If I use external effect device it doesn't make any difference. I'm talking about real time stuff.
Example:

I play Arturia Minibrute into FF800 ch 10. I use audio track (Audio from ch 10-Minibrute) just for sends (audio to:sends only) and monitoring set to on. Then I use return track for Moog Analog Delay (audio to: ch 7). I have hooked up Moog Delay on ch 7 out and In (ch 7 of FF800). Than I use Total Mix for monitoring what is coming back from Delay, so I avoid sending audio signal back to Live. But I can hear a pre delay of first repeat of Moog Delay, so this is unusable method for me.
I know, that this is somehow stupid. I can do this trick in Total mix (there is no latency) , but sometimes I want to use automation in Live. And I tried lots of things, nothing seems to work.

One thing I didn't know is that you can adjust FF800 band limit, so if you don't use all channels (ADAT 1 and 2, SPDIF) you can use Band Limit to optimize the speed of information.
I didn't tried this yet, but I will investigate this today.

Is there a way to use Rewire with Live and Total mix? I really don't know what Rewire is, I just know it has to do something with DAWs and other apps.

Anyhow, I'm enjoying all this, really! :)
I just want to optimize my setup for live performances. And this puzzle is essential to me since I'm more an analog freak than a software when it comes to sound and interface.

Tanks allot for your feedback guys!

fishmonkey
Posts: 4478
Joined: Wed Oct 24, 2007 4:50 am

Re: Anyone using a RME Fireface 800 on LIVE 8?

Post by fishmonkey » Thu Mar 21, 2013 11:23 am

CoreAudio is the standard low-level audio system for Mac OS X. it is very good and almost all audio interfaces use it to get audio into and out of Macs.

i assume from your description that your signal chain is: Minibrute -> FF800 -> Live -> FF800 -> Moog Analog Delay -> FF800 -> Live -> FF800 -> Speakers/Headphones

apart from anything else, the signal is converted back and forth between analog and digital four times, and you are wanting to apply automated audio effects in Live as well. there is unavoidable latency involved in all that. you can minimise the latency by using the highest sample rate and lowest buffer sizes that your system can cope with before the audio starts to break up.

if you setup the external audio device effects in Live correctly (and don't use direct monitoring) you should be able to keep the signals in sync, however this will necessarily involve creating an overall greater latency on the signal, as things that are early will need to be delayed to line them up with the late stuff...

The Carpet Cleaner
Posts: 1128
Joined: Sat May 16, 2009 2:21 pm
Location: Paris

Re: Anyone using a RME Fireface 800 on LIVE 8?

Post by The Carpet Cleaner » Thu Mar 21, 2013 12:24 pm

I have fireface ucx.
It is insane.
I have been mixing and mastering projects at 128 buffer. You just forget about latency!
No crash. No bug. Loopback function very handy.
Sound quality a little better than my previous m-audio.
Expensive but good investment if you want it for at least the next 5 years.
I am using it in usb2.

VitjaB
Posts: 15
Joined: Sun Dec 09, 2012 10:09 am

Re: Anyone using a RME Fireface 800 on LIVE 8?

Post by VitjaB » Thu Mar 21, 2013 1:23 pm

@ Fishmonkey

I think there is no problem in A/D D/A converters since I can do this just with FF800 and there is no latency. The problem is connection between Live and FF800.
My signal flow is Minibrute-FF800-Live-FF800-Moog Delay-FF800-Main Monitors, so what is going out of Delay is monitored directly from FF800 and not back to Live and then FF800.
And If I do signal flow as: Minibrute-FF800-Moog Delay-FF800-Main Monitors, there is no latency!

I think I have to adjust the Band Limit on FF800. So my firewire connection will have less to work and so faster the signal will be.
I will try also this with shorter firewire cable. I have 10m long one, so maybe this is also the problem.

fishmonkey
Posts: 4478
Joined: Wed Oct 24, 2007 4:50 am

Re: Anyone using a RME Fireface 800 on LIVE 8?

Post by fishmonkey » Thu Mar 21, 2013 11:25 pm

i'm not sure why you keep ignoring this, but the two settings that will make the most difference to the amount of latency are the sample rate and the buffer size.

the length of the cable is irrelevant.

changing the bandwidth settings may enable you to use a higher sample rate and lower buffer size. to test this i would firstly figure out the highest sample rate and lowest buffer size that your system can cope with. then try changing the bandwidth settings to a more restricted set, and see if that enables you to lower the buffer size even further.

VitjaB
Posts: 15
Joined: Sun Dec 09, 2012 10:09 am

Re: Anyone using a RME Fireface 800 on LIVE 8?

Post by VitjaB » Mon Mar 25, 2013 12:37 pm

I had no chance to test all this, so I did not ignore any of options.
Hopefully I could do this today. No I will try it out.
Anyway, I hate long cables just because they are mess.
Thanx for all the support! I really appreciate your help.

I will report soon!

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