# Moving To RME what the advantages



## kfirpr (Feb 18, 2014)

HI
I ordered about 10 days ago the RME HDSPe AIO card with a balanced breakout cable which I understand it is very good soundcard. I'm currently using the EMU 0404 PCI card which is very good to my ears. I'm getting seldom crashes with large projects and thought it is a good time to upgrade.
I'm getting 9ms latency with my big templates and it seems like workable latency.
my question is for you guys with the RME, what kind of enhancements should I expect?
Lower latencies? (is it audible 9ms vs 3ms with orchestral templates)
Is there a difference with sound quality?
what kind of features can I utilize for my workflow?


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## EastWest Lurker (Feb 18, 2014)

I don't have experience with the EMU card to compare but with the RME card, which I also use, you get rock solid drivers and arguably the industry leader in low latency performance.


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## Guy Rowland (Feb 18, 2014)

The big one for me is multi client drivers. You can run multiple Asio apps without a hitch - a huge workflow boost. IMO 9ms latency is so good I wouldn't fret about going any lower.


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## Ron Snijders (Feb 18, 2014)

No experience with any E-MU card here either, but I have an RME FireFace 800. Your sound quality won't benefit as the tracks are rendered by your PC, not your sound card. If you currently have 9ms latency, going lower won't matter at all. What you do get is the knowledge that your sound card will work no matter what. I actually had some troubles with mine when I just got it. It turned out that was the Firewire chipset on my PC failing. After fixing that, I have not had a single problem with the card, ever.


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## EastWest Lurker (Feb 18, 2014)

Ron Snijders @ Tue Feb 18 said:


> No experience with any E-MU card here either, but I have an RME FireFace 800. Your sound quality won't benefit as the tracks are rendered by your PC, not your sound card. If you currently have 9ms latency, going lower won't matter at all. What you do get is the knowledge that your sound card will work no matter what. I actually had some troubles with mine when I just got it. It turned out that was the Firewire chipset on my PC failing. After fixing that, I have not had a single problem with the card, ever.



Actually the sound quality _could_ matter, as better D/A means you could hear more detail when mixing.


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## Ron Snijders (Feb 18, 2014)

EastWest Lurker @ Tue 18 Feb said:


> Ron Snijders @ Tue Feb 18 said:
> 
> 
> > No experience with any E-MU card here either, but I have an RME FireFace 800. Your sound quality won't benefit as the tracks are rendered by your PC, not your sound card. If you currently have 9ms latency, going lower won't matter at all. What you do get is the knowledge that your sound card will work no matter what. I actually had some troubles with mine when I just got it. It turned out that was the Firewire chipset on my PC failing. After fixing that, I have not had a single problem with the card, ever.
> ...


Fair point. I actually did consider putting that in my post, but decided not to. I don't think that difference would be big enough to matter much. Then again, having all the information before making a decision is better, so thanks for the addition


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## AR (Feb 18, 2014)

Switching latency without restarting the daw. Thats awesome. Plus of course state of the art sound. Only apogee and some minor niche companies are better


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## Darthmorphling (Feb 18, 2014)

Guy Rowland @ Tue Feb 18 said:


> The big one for me is multi client drivers. You can run multiple Asio apps without a hitch - a huge workflow boost. IMO 9ms latency is so good I wouldn't fret about going any lower.



I can say this is a huge benefit. I don't have the RME, but it is rumored that the Komplete Audio 6 has some of the same components, not all, and that the drivers share some of the code from RME's drivers.

Even if it's not true it does support multiple ASIO applications to run at the same time. Definately worth it if you get the RME.


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## Stephen Rees (Feb 18, 2014)

RME Digicheck metering (which you get included for free) is very useful.


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## kfirpr (Feb 19, 2014)

EastWest Lurker @ Tue Feb 18 said:


> Ron Snijders @ Tue Feb 18 said:
> 
> 
> > No experience with any E-MU card here either, but I have an RME FireFace 800. Your sound quality won't benefit as the tracks are rendered by your PC, not your sound card. If you currently have 9ms latency, going lower won't matter at all. What you do get is the knowledge that your sound card will work no matter what. I actually had some troubles with mine when I just got it. It turned out that was the Firewire chipset on my PC failing. After fixing that, I have not had a single problem with the card, ever.
> ...



I understand that RME has better converters but does it matter when mixing samples?

Another Q is with the EMU I could only work on 44.1 - 24bit, I'll bet with the RME I can get higher, but it is really necessary?

Thanks for your input so far


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## EastWest Lurker (Feb 19, 2014)

kfirpr @ Wed Feb 19 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Tue Feb 18 said:
> 
> 
> > Ron Snijders @ Tue Feb 18 said:
> ...



Yes it matters, for the reason I already stated. Of course, if you are a crappy mixer, maybe not.

I almost always work at 48/24.


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## kfirpr (Feb 19, 2014)

EastWest Lurker @ Wed Feb 19 said:


> kfirpr @ Wed Feb 19 said:
> 
> 
> > EastWest Lurker @ Tue Feb 18 said:
> ...



Unfortunately I am a crappy mixer :(


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## chimuelo (Feb 19, 2014)

RME Drivers are crucial. The idea any developer has to reboot just to remember a new setting is stone age implementation.
One must be able to hear and feel the differences in an A/B enviroment, so if a manufacturer doesn't offer that, they have cut corners somewhere else.
JUst break down and get RME, untick the Souncard on your build lise for at least 7 more years now.


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## Ron Snijders (Feb 19, 2014)

EastWest Lurker @ Wed 19 Feb said:


> kfirpr @ Wed Feb 19 said:
> 
> 
> > EastWest Lurker @ Tue Feb 18 said:
> ...


That's a bit harsh, in my opinion. Differences in DA are far from as big as they're made out to be by marketing. I have no experience with the E-MU card, but it appears to be an entry-level offering. So there probably will be a noticeable difference in sound quality. But when moving from a mid-tier card to a higher-tier one, the difference will only be as big as you believe it to be.
Being able to work at 48/24 obviously has its advantages. Mostly in not needing / having simple sample rate conversion when working with video.


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## kfirpr (Feb 20, 2014)

chimuelo @ Wed Feb 19 said:


> RME Drivers are crucial. The idea any developer has to reboot just to remember a new setting is stone age implementation.
> One must be able to hear and feel the differences in an A/B enviroment, so if a manufacturer doesn't offer that, they have cut corners somewhere else.
> JUst break down and get RME, untick the Souncard on your build lise for at least 7 more years now.



It should arrive in the next couple of days..and then we'll see :D 
Thanks


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## Guy Rowland (Feb 20, 2014)

(I may have misunderstood Jay, but there's no appreciable audible difference between 44.1 / 24 bit and 48 / 24 bit, all other factors being equal - as others have said, the RME drivers are a big deal though, and the mic preamps are very good - enjoy!)


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## Rctec (Feb 20, 2014)

I use them, they work. let's be gauche for a moment: 20 Billion Dollars of box-office made with RME cards and retail and Cubase.
What was the question ? 
Sorry...


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## audiot (Feb 20, 2014)

Since I use RME (HDSPe AIO): driver stability, no crashes anymore, latency is fantastic (and switchable without any restart of my DAW!). Difference in audio quality as discussed here? Don't know, but the the difference in working quality is apparent.


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## germancomponist (Feb 20, 2014)

EastWest Lurker @ Tue Feb 18 said:


> Actually the sound quality _could_ matter, as better D/A means you could hear more detail when mixing.



Exactly!


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## germancomponist (Feb 20, 2014)

Rctec @ Thu Feb 20 said:


> I use them, they work. let's be gauche for a moment: 20 Billion Dollars of box-office made with RME cards and retail and Cubase.
> What was the question ?
> Sorry...



Ha....


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## EastWest Lurker (Feb 20, 2014)

Guy Rowland @ Thu Feb 20 said:


> (I may have misunderstood Jay, but there's no appreciable audible difference between 44.1 / 24 bit and 48 / 24 bit, all other factors being equal - as others have said, the RME drivers are a big deal though, and the mic preamps are very good - enjoy!)



Agreed, I was responding to his statement that he could only work at 44.1.


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## kfirpr (Feb 20, 2014)

Well..after reading all the positive comments about RME I'm certainly more excited about this, and I failed to mention that I also record guitar tracks to clients occasionally I'll bet that with this card they will sound warmer and cleaner


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## jc5 (Feb 20, 2014)

The difference in DA conversion actually can be quite startling - I recently made the switch myself to a UFX from a Tascam FW-1804, which wasn't an inexpensive unit and had rather good Frontier conversion, and can vouch for it.

Startling but also subtle - your ears have to be attuned to hearing these important differences. Stereo spread, low frequency definition and overall clarity are some of the things that benefit. You can reap those benefits even with just headphones if your room has less than ideal acoustics.


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## Dom (Feb 20, 2014)

For me I would say the biggest advantage is TotalMix FX. It's a great piece of software and now handles all the stereo and surround monitoring, cue mixes, talkback, bass management where needed etc. It handles all this with no latency. If your RME hardware supports TotalMix FX (rather than just Totalmix) even better.


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## NYC Composer (Feb 20, 2014)

Dom @ Thu Feb 20 said:


> For me I would say the biggest advantage is TotalMix FX. It's a great piece of software and now handles all the stereo and surround monitoring, cue mixes, talkback, bass management where needed etc. It handles all this with no latency. If your RME hardware supports TotalMix FX (rather than just Totalmix) even better.



Could you tell me a bit more about this (Total Mix)? One of the reasons I stick with my MOTU Ultralite is the Cue Mix FX software, which allows me to monitor through it rather than the hardware. Zero latency is pretty important to me while singing and playing and recording singers, and even the small amount of latency coming through Cubase gives me comb filtering nightmares, so I monitor through CueMix which allows me to send some (bad but serviceable) reverb to singers while bypassing Cubase as monitoring. Does Total Mix FX do this as well?


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## Guy Rowland (Feb 21, 2014)

NYC Composer @ Fri Feb 21 said:


> Could you tell me a bit more about this (Total Mix)? One of the reasons I stick with my MOTU Ultralite is the Cue Mix FX software, which allows me to monitor through it rather than the hardware. Zero latency is pretty important to me while singing and playing and recording singers, and even the small amount of latency coming through Cubase gives me comb filtering nightmares, so I monitor through CueMix which allows me to send some (bad but serviceable) reverb to singers while bypassing Cubase as monitoring. Does Total Mix FX do this as well?



In short - yes (and it's a beauuuuutiful reverb too). I agree with Dom, it's an excellent piece of software. It did take me a little while to get my head round it - it masquerades as a conventional mixer whereas in fact it works slightly differently (I thought the path at the bottom of the channels would be routing, in fact it selects which output you are controlling, which is more flexible but can be a heat-of-the-moment trip up). As for real time effects, it has this beauuutiful reverb and echo fx, all with sensible and useful controls. You can also set up snapshots for when you are working with different artists etc.


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## Dom (Feb 21, 2014)

Yes you can do exactly that. The built in reverb is not great but adequate for monitoring during recording. The reverb/delay, eq, dynamics are only present in the "FX" version.

The OP's AIO will only support TotalMix - without the effects, but you can still set up a latency free monitor path, even with reverb if needed - just use a pre-fade send on the input channel in the DAW and turn down the fader.


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## NYC Composer (Feb 21, 2014)

Damnit. Now this is sounding attractive. And expensive. And pci-e which means you cant really take it with you into the future. Still- super low latency and improved transparency........(sigh)


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## Guy Rowland (Feb 21, 2014)

NYC Composer @ Fri Feb 21 said:


> Damnit. Now this is sounding attractive. And expensive. And pci-e which means you cant really take it with you into the future. Still- super low latency and improved transparency........(sigh)



Don't forget they do USB2/3/Firewire card options too. The Babyface is all I need in the studio I/O wise (and you can add something like the Behringer 8200 to get 8 more ins and outs via ADAT), but there are other options too.

(oh and I disagree with Dom - for a vocal reverb the TotalMixFX reverb is beauuutiful (or did I say that already?))

EDIT - forgot to say, the best bit about the Babyface imo is if you punch the huge volume control, it dims the output by a user-defined amount. That's a very pro and useful feature.


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## NYC Composer (Feb 21, 2014)

Guy Rowland @ Fri Feb 21 said:


> NYC Composer @ Fri Feb 21 said:
> 
> 
> > Damnit. Now this is sounding attractive. And expensive. And pci-e which means you cant really take it with you into the future. Still- super low latency and improved transparency........(sigh)
> ...



I have to assume the pcie is the lower latency though, yes?


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## rayinstirling (Feb 21, 2014)

Guy Rowland @ Fri Feb 21 said:


> NYC Composer @ Fri Feb 21 said:
> 
> 
> > Damnit. Now this is sounding attractive. And expensive. And pci-e which means you cant really take it with you into the future. Still- super low latency and improved transparency........(sigh)
> ...



I'm with you on this one Guy,
Babyface is great and so is the TotalMixFX software.


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## Guy Rowland (Feb 21, 2014)

NYC Composer @ Fri Feb 21 said:


> I have to assume the pcie is the lower latency though, yes?



Euuuuummmm.... maybe so, not 100% sure. The USB range latency is very very good, but it could be the pcie pushes it a hair's breadth more? Must admit I haven't checked, I'm not over-concerned about 9ms vs 6ms etc. Either way, the TotalMix live inputs are zero latency for recording.


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## NYC Composer (Feb 21, 2014)

Right, but I 'm mostly interested in lower latency for VI's. My present system does the Total Mix thingie,


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## Guy Rowland (Feb 21, 2014)

NYC Composer @ Fri Feb 21 said:


> Right, but I 'm mostly interested in lower latency for VI's. My present system does the Total Mix thingie,



Fair dos - someone else might be able to chime in on the comparative stats?


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## Mihkel Zilmer (Feb 21, 2014)

There are a few latency comparison stats posted here:

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/musi...erface-low-latency-performance-data-base.html


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## germancomponist (Feb 21, 2014)

For a lower budget I would suggest the Focusrite Liquid Saffire. It has also very good ad-da technique and a nearly same mixer software. (Firewire 800 here)


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## Guy Rowland (Feb 21, 2014)

Mihkel Zilmer @ Fri Feb 21 said:


> There are a few latency comparison stats posted here:
> 
> http://www.gearslutz.com/board/musi...erface-low-latency-performance-data-base.html



Thanks Mihkel - from what I can understand of them, the most extreme difference between the USB2 and Pcie interface is about 33%, while some of the other benchmarks look almost neck and neck. Personally I'd take the USB / TotalMixFX convenience / budget every time, but Larry might have different requirements of course.


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## SymphonicSamples (Feb 21, 2014)

Hey , my PC has a HDSPe AIO and without a doubt the drivers are more efficient than other interfaces when high demands are placed on the CPU . Some time back I got a few interfaces (USB interface) and compared . I have a Roland Quad Capture on my laptop and tried a couple others . When running a large Cubase project - heavy load with the HDSPe AIO no issues , when simply changing to say the Roland in Cubase ( same project ) starts to glitch and cause issues with playback . Great card


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## rayinstirling (Feb 21, 2014)

Some info on TotalMixFX


http://youtu.be/sCH3qVaLL-I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O5i3s29Id4&list=RDsCH3qVaLL-I&feature=share&index=1


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## AC986 (Feb 21, 2014)

Mihkel Zilmer @ Fri Feb 21 said:


> There are a few latency comparison stats posted here:
> 
> http://www.gearslutz.com/board/musi...erface-low-latency-performance-data-base.html



I may be missing something but there's no Apogee comparison. Is this because it's for PC's only.


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## NYC Composer (Feb 21, 2014)

This is some good info. Thanks, guys.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Feb 21, 2014)

> 20 Billion Dollars of box-office made with RME cards and retail and Cubase.
> What was the question ?
> What was the question ?



The question was how many billions kfirpr will make with balanced cables and an RME card instead of the unbalanced ones and an E-mu card.

My guess is only 19, therefore - back of a cocktail napkin - balanced cables have to be worth at least half a billion.


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## kfirpr (Mar 3, 2014)

Hi
I got the RME HDSPe aio card and installed it. So far I'm liking it but have a question for you guys
when I play music in wav files the sound quality seems to be a tad different from my old EMU 0404, it's like the stereo field is changed and basses seems to be less present as well colors which I had in the EMU, the sound is more "trebley" 
Maybe it's my imagination, maybe it's supposed to sound like this but I'll try to do A\B testing and report again..


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 3, 2014)

kfirpr @ Mon Mar 03 said:


> Hi
> I got the RME HDSPe aio card and installed it. So far I'm liking it but have a question for you guys
> when I play music in wav files the sound quality seems to be a tad different from my old EMU 0404, it's like the stereo field is changed and basses seems to be less present as well colors which I had in the EMU, the sound is more "trebley"
> Maybe it's my imagination, maybe it's supposed to sound like this but I'll try to do A\B testing and report again..



Assuming everything is set up right, my guess would be that your EMU is the one not ringing true. If that's the case, you can look forward to glorious mixes to come


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## Whatisvalis (Mar 3, 2014)

Can someone just explain actual real world use of multi client drivers with RME? Had no idea this possible.

Running windows and Cubase can you actually run a second ASIO device (not rewired) on the same machine and have both sharing the RME drivers instead of relying on something like ASIO4All?

Cheers!


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 3, 2014)

Whatisvalis @ Mon Mar 03 said:


> Can someone just explain actual real world use of multi client drivers with RME? Had no idea this possible.
> 
> Running windows and Cubase can you actually run a second ASIO device (not rewired) on the same machine and have both sharing the RME drivers instead of relying on something like ASIO4All?
> 
> Cheers!



Yes. Typically I have Cubase or Pro Tools running at the same time as Adobe Audition CS5.5. I could run Cubase and PT at the same time, but I need to sort out my midi for that to work - by default, the first host to use mid grabs the midi ports and the subsequent ones can't see them. There are solutions involving 3rd party virtual midi cables, but I've never got to grips with them.

I need to investigate then running the two in sync with each other, and recording from one to the other (any tips, anyone?). In TotalMix, typically the ASIO programs all share one midi fader which is a bit of a shame, so I can't just record out of one and back in without being very careful not to get a loop. (Windows generic sounds tend to come out of a different fader, which IS useful).


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## Ron Snijders (Mar 3, 2014)

To be perfectly honest, I had no idea that that wasn't possible with other cards... I usually have Kontakt standalone opened next to my DAW (Studio One), so I don't need to switch stuff when I just want to play some piano. Both use ASIO. This keeps working when I open up other ASIO stuff. No problem at all


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## Whatisvalis (Mar 3, 2014)

Thanks, that's good to know. 

For Windows I would recommend not getting too obessed with running two DAWs together, it's probably not worth the hassle. 

Some ideas for that though:

LoopBe30 and LoopMIDI are both excellent choices for virtual MIDI ports (create a different port for each in/out to avoid feedback)
- clocking will not be perfect

Mac users have soundflower, getting audio between the two on Windows is a little more troublesome. I usually just bounce and import.


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## chimuelo (Mar 3, 2014)

I can run as many DAWs as I want with Windows, never had a latency or interuption.
I'm not using RME but I have had a multi client driver for years.
Didn't even know until I used GSIF and ASIO together 10 years ago.

RME drivers are the bench to beat for hosting VI's, unless you want to spend a few large on realtime DSP racks.
The tests using the little Magneto Compressors I am sure is accurate, but for hosting multiple VI's using the PCI-e buss, RME is as good as it gets, also why every live performer I know uses them.


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