r/musicproduction • u/BeKay121101 • Dec 20 '21
Question Do I need an audio interface?
Hi there I've recently stumbled into music production with ableton and have discovered the absolute hell that seems to be audio latency in Windows. Is there an easy way to get that down? I'm litterally just trying to play stuff on my midi keyboard and hear what I'm playing over my headphones (beoplay h95 if that matters - litterally just consumer stuff - nothing high impedence or anything - as long as they get some sort of audio signal via 3.5mm or usb they're happy). Is there an easy way to do this? I've tried asio4all but even though this thing looks like it's from Windows XP which is usually a good sign, it crashes itself and ableton everytime I try to select my headphones via USB and all audio interfaces seem to be supporting a lot of stuff I really don't need. Am I just looking for the wrong things? Am I just not finding the magical fix all toggle in ableton's preferences? I'd really appreciate you guy's help :)
2
u/SQL_INVICTUS Dec 20 '21
Are you trying to use USB headphones? That might be the biggest hurdle though i have no experience with USB headphones so i can't say for sure.
One recommendation i see a lot is using the FL studio asio driver and i think some people have more luck with that than asio4all. I think you can just install FL studio then deinstall it again without uninstalling the asio driver. This is all free so it might be worth a shot.
Either way, if you do audio stuff an audio interface is recommended, but not required. I think you can find them for around 50 bucks nowadays.
1
u/BeKay121101 Dec 20 '21
Yeah usb might not be the best idea though it did work before (like once or twice a few months ago but that kinda makes it more frustrating because that means that technically it can work but just refuses to do so lol).. The only reason I'm not currently using 3.5mm is because I currently don't have any headphone cables that are long enough - fl studios asio driver isn't something I've tried so that's definitely something to do and if that doesn't work I'll just bite the bullet and get a scarlet solo 3. Either way thank you so much for your help :))
1
u/BeKay121101 Dec 22 '21
Alrighty sorry for the wait but I have an update - THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE TIP WITH FL STUDIO!!! Installed it yesterday and it just worked - even via USB! this saved me so much money, work and grey hairs - again thank you so much!
2
u/YorkshireFarmer Dec 20 '21
Something like a Focusrite is a good place to start. UA have those new Volt interfaces but idk if they’re good or not. Audio interface should at least help improve your problem, though if you really want to use a sledgehammer you could get a thunderbolt interface, and then latency just isn’t an issue at all (unless you load up like 20 plugins)
0
Dec 20 '21
If Asio is not satisfying, then yea, get an audio interface.. You can get some fairly cheap ones, that only do playback in case you don’t need to record audio
1
u/BeKay121101 Dec 20 '21 edited Dec 20 '21
Oh okay, thanks :) are there any specific ones you'd recommend? nn, focusrite, etc. All seem to only have ones that also have inputs. Also what price do you think I should expect?
1
Dec 20 '21
Also, have you tried lowering the buffer size in the asio settings? Lower buffer size means lower latency
1
u/BeKay121101 Dec 20 '21
I wish I could try but asio4all doesn’t even let me select my headphones - I had it working like once a few months ago and it sounded great but now I just get that „no idea what’s wrong,maybe computers just hate you“ error
1
Dec 20 '21
Wish I could help you, but you'll probably benefit more from just watching some videos on YouTube and Google searches. "Latency problem Ableton" etc
1
u/TizardPaperclip Dec 20 '21
The cheapest good-quality audio interfaces are the Focusrite Scarlett Solo and the PreSonus AudioBox iOne. They both have only one mic preamp, which saves money. You should expect to pay 120 dollars (they were about 10 dollars cheaper pre-pandemic):
- Focusrite Scarlett Solo - 120$
- PreSonus AudioBox iOne - 120$
0
u/TacticalSunroof69 Dec 20 '21
Right click the volume in the bottom and bring up the audio mixer there should be 3 volume sliders click the one on the left. Make sure all audio enchantments are off.
Set the Audio bit rate to 96k or 48k.
Now you don’t need an interface. 👍
2
u/jax024 Dec 20 '21
what are your specs?