Cubase LE, Zoom R8 and USB recording Latency

Cubase
1

Hey all, long time Audacity user - just switched to Cubase LE as it came free with a purchase of the ZOOM R8.

I purchased the ZOOM R8 to replace the Scarlett 2i2 USB audio interface. There are documented issues with USB connected recording devices and USB latency and multi-track recording. I could tweak the latency issues in Audacity but it was becoming a pain.

When recording straight to the ZOOM R8 and multitracking, there is no latency! I suspected this.

When I record using Cubase as a DAW, I am also not getting any lag… which is nice surprise.

So 2 questions based on the above.

Is Cubase just better than Audacity dealing with the USB lag?

Is the best way to handle multitrack recordings, is to record to the Zoom R8 first, then import to Cubase?

Thanks!

2

As you have already discovered, there is no general issue with USB interfaces. There are “documented issues” with pretty much everything. If it works, great! I don’t see any reason not to record directly into Cubase. Transferring files sounds like an extra step not needed. There are many high end USB interfaces with good drivers offering extremely low latency.

3

Audacity is a good basic audio file editor. I use it a lot of for voice over editing. It’s not really a fully fledged DAW and is not cut out for multi track recording.

4

Yea - I think this is the case. Audacity would work great sometimes for multi-tracking then the next day it was crap. Drove me up the while for a bit as I thought it way my playing was just a bit off. Silver lining - I tried to fix the technical issue (which I did not know at the time) by spending more time with the metronome … which is arduous yet rewarding.