Ableton Forum

I currently use a Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 and while i'm pleased with the sound, the latency of this box is a little on the high side (60ms in Ableton) so now that i have some extra cash in my pocket i was thinking of upgrading to a RME Babyface Pro. I have heard the Babyface Pro has really low latency which is good, but i'm also wondering about the sound quality it will give. I read one review on another website saying that it made a big difference in quality, which makes sense as the unit is twice the price of the Focusrite interface.

So basically i'm using Mackie HR824 monitors and Sennheiser HD650 headphones for monitoring and i have a Rode NTK & Shure Beta 58 microphone. Will i notice any improvements in quality with this setup if i do decide to purchase the Babyface Pro?

frankswift wrote:I currently use a Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 and while i'm pleased with the sound, the latency of this box is a little on the high side (60ms in Ableton) so now that i have some extra cash in my pocket i was thinking of upgrading to a RME Babyface Pro. I have heard the Babyface Pro has really low latency which is good, but i'm also wondering about the sound quality it will give. I read one review on another website saying that it made a big difference in quality, which makes sense as the unit is twice the price of the Focusrite interface.

So basically i'm using Mackie HR824 monitors and Sennheiser HD650 headphones for monitoring and i have a Rode NTK & Shure Beta 58 microphone. Will i notice any improvements in quality with this setup if i do decide to purchase the Babyface Pro?

It's doubtful if you'll hear a difference as Focusrite makes good interfaces, but barring unknown hardware problems and owning a Babyface mk1 where I'm using 128 to 256 samples buffer with a Core2Duo MBP daily, I'd say it's safe to say it will sound very good at about as little latency one can have. At mix down I go down to 512. but that's mostly because my machine is a little weak,

How did you measure your latency? I assume you mean from key press to sound?

I'm viewing the latency in Ableton Settings.





I've heard some people can get their Latency down to around 5ms, however when i change the settings in the MixControl app i can get down to about 30ms before it starts to make popping noises.

My PC is decent, Intel i7 4770k, 8 GB RAM so i don't think the issue is there.


Basically all i'm wondering is will it be worth upgrading to the Babyface and ditching the Scarlett interface?

If you can't run a lower latency with an RME card, then likely it's something in your computer and not a soundcard issue. RME is known for having some of the lowest latency around, if that's something that's important to you. I'm not sure how the Focusrite card sounds, but at that pricepoint I'd think there would probably be at least a tiny difference in audio quality. That depends on things like your monitoring and acoustics too of course.

Can you buy from some place that has a return policy, in case it doesn't improve things for you?

Tarekith wrote:If you can't run a lower latency with an RME card, then likely it's something in your computer and not a soundcard issue. RME is known for having some of the lowest latency around, if that's something that's important to you. I'm not sure how the Focusrite card sounds, but at that pricepoint I'd think there would probably be at least a tiny difference in audio quality. That depends on things like your monitoring and acoustics too of course.

Can you buy from some place that has a return policy, in case it doesn't improve things for you?

No no, I'm saying I have a Focusrite Scarlets 6i6 atm and I want to know if it is worth upgrading to the RME Babyface Pro as far as latency and sound quality is concerned

frankswift wrote:I'm viewing the latency in Ableton Settings.

The thing is that the Focusrite shouldn't be that slow.

In a 44.1 Khz project my RME Babyface mk1 gives me an output latency at about 7ms on 256 samples and a little above 4ms with 128 samples. 512 samples gives 13ms.

That's not the roundtrip latency though. 4ms is fast enough to work with, but slow enough for my drummer to notice when we add MIDI latency on top of that. It's still very workable though. You have to remember this is on a 2.66 Core2Duo MBP with OS X Mavericks.

I've read that the mk2 is some ms faster still.

frankswift wrote:I currently use a Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 and while i'm pleased with the sound, the latency of this box is a little on the high side (60ms in Ableton) so now that i have some extra cash in my pocket i was thinking of upgrading to a RME Babyface Pro. I have heard the Babyface Pro has really low latency which is good, but i'm also wondering about the sound quality it will give. I read one review on another website saying that it made a big difference in quality, which makes sense as the unit is twice the price of the Focusrite interface.

So basically i'm using Mackie HR824 monitors and Sennheiser HD650 headphones for monitoring and i have a Rode NTK & Shure Beta 58 microphone. Will i notice any improvements in quality with this setup if i do decide to purchase the Babyface Pro?

The BF pro is my HOME away from home where everything runs through Lavry and Lynx converters.
The BF Pro is THAT GOOD in terms of DA conversion at least, I haven't recorded enough through it yet to make up my mind with AD

frankswift wrote:No no, I'm saying I have a Focusrite Scarlets 6i6 atm and I want to know if it is worth upgrading to the RME Babyface Pro as far as latency and sound quality is concerned

I know, and that's why I said that. See if you can find a place that will let you return the RME if you don't see an improvement over your Focusrite.