High latency with Audio Interface

I just got a Focusrite 2i2 audio interface and my latency went from 15ms (ASIO4ALL) to 32ms. I thought this was supposed to lower my latency? Any help?

Don’t know the Focusrite but it should have a controlpanel or something alike where you can set the buffer/latency.

I would recommend using the manufacturer’s driver. Asio4All is not a true ASIO driver (its a wrapper).

+1 for the Manufacturer’s driver over ASIO4All.

I think some other members might have misunderstood your post (although it could have been me who misunderstood)- were you saying that you used to use Asio4all with your internal audio, but now you’ve switched to an audio interface and you’re not seeing similar performance?

I’ll start by saying the focusrite Scarlett 2i2 has the worst latency of any interface I’ve ever used. It’s even slower than the Access Virus TI running in Interface mode, and the Virus is a USB 1 device. That’s not necessarily the end of the world though, as there are ways to work around it.

A few questions:

  • First off, how are you measuring your latency? (What app or tool are you using, and which statistic are you looking at? If your DAW reports separate input and output latency numbers, if you add them up that’s usually pretty close to the interface’s true round-trip latency… the real number will usually be just a couple ms more than your sum). Some 2i2 users mistake the slider value in their 2i2 control panel for latency (because it’s measured in ms), and this is wrong; that’s actually a strange way Focusrite chose to represent the sample buffer size in their UI.

  • Are you using the interface to record vocals or external instruments? If so, you can eliminate the effects of latency by switching your interface into direct monitoring mode instead of monitoring incoming signals through your DAW. If you’re able to work this way it almost doesn’t matter how bad your interface’s latency is.

  • Have you experimented with decreasing the sample buffer size your interface uses? This can lower the latency at the risk of destabilizing your audio streams. The 2i2 has a weirdo control panel where you adjust a slider by “ms” instead of samples. No idea why they set it up that way, but it still comes down to: slide to the left for fewer samples/lower latency, slide to the right for more. You’ll have to experiment with this to see how low you can go while still having audible/usable audio. (The 2i2 isn’t as robust as some other interfaces, and can’t reliably go as low as a Steinberg or RME interface can.)

  • Also, in your audio apps, are you selecting ASIO as the driver type, and then selecting your Focusrite fron the list of available interfaces? (Some interfaces support different driver types, and you do want to make ASIO’s selected for best performance.)

If you end up determining that you simply can’t work with this interface due to the latency (some singers and guitarists need to be able to monitor through DAW in order to hear themselves mixed with effects, so direct monitoring with most interfaces isn’t an option for them), the interface brand with the absolute lowest USB latency (and highest reliability) is RME. No one else comes close on USB performance. For more affordable models, the Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6 has very good performance, although you will want to make sure to update the firmware and drivers as soon as you get it (they’ve made a lot of improvements to its USB support). The Steinberg UR22 also offers slightly better than average performance, followed closely by the Roland Duo-Capture EX.