# I need a new audio interface. Please help?



## leandroab (Jun 11, 2016)

So, yeah.

I'm past analyzing an audio interface's I/O capabilities. 

I'm more concerned now about performance, especially RTL (round trip latency), since I'll be monitoring wet signals from the daw through headphones.

I'm divided between the following products:

Roland Duo-Capture EX
Focusrite Scarlett 2i4
Steinberg UR22 MkII
Zoom UAC-2 (USB 3.0)

From what I read, USB 2.0 vs. USB 3.0 didn't prove any difference whatsoever. More throughput didn't correlate to less latency (marginal difference). Kinda eliminates de Zoom one, but not really.

RTL takes into account the inherent AD/DA converters, usb buffers and safety buffers (which in 99.99% of the times with "cheap" interfaces, you can't manage them), etc. But most of the times, the culprit is the manufacturer's drivers.

So, which one has the best/more stable drivers?
Which is best to monitor using headphones? (I won't be able to use speaker monitors). 

I heard something about the UR22 not being able to monitor stereo, only mono. Other interfaces have a switch to change between stereo or mono. But the UR22's MIX knob looks like a nice option to have. I guess since I'll be monitoring through the DAW, and not the interface itself, this won't be a problem if I end up with the UR22? (and live with the inherent RTL) Is that correct?


So, as you can see, I'm pretty confused. If you have one of those, please share your experiences (good/bad, setup/rig, etc...)

Thank you!!!


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## KingAenarion (Jun 11, 2016)

When it comes to Latency and stability, In my experience I'd say there are 3 tiers for non-Thunderbolt/PCIe interaces

Tier 1 Best - RME, MOTU, Apogee, PrismSound, Antelope, Lynx 

Tier 2 Stable but nothing special - Presonus, Focusrite, UAD, IK Multimedia, Steinberg, Roland/Edirol, Zoom, M-Audio

Tier 3 meh - Akai, Art, Behringer, Line 6, Samson etc...




Thunderbolt and PCIe have much lower latency due to their very nature, but I can get around 4-6ms Latency stable on my RME Fireface UFX no problems over USB for tracking, and not much more than that when I have to up the buffer for mixing.


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## TheTrooper (Jun 11, 2016)

Go with the UR22 MkII, it works extremely well.
Great interface, and the price is good too; runs really great both with Mac and PC.

If You have a higher budget go with Thunderbolts if You have Mac, but that will require a more consistent budget.


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## Masoo2 (Jun 11, 2016)

Get the Steinberg UR22 MkII or the Roland Quad Capture (pass on the duo)

I've heard nothing but great things about those.

I have a Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 and I'd never recommend it. Super noisey preamps, constant driver issues (Windows), and it shuts off at least once every 8 hours or so randomly. My friend has even worse issues with his Scarlett Solo.

If you can afford one of the tier 1 brands KingAenarion listed, get it. If not, stick with Steinberg, Roland, or some of the newer PreSonus stuff (IE: Studio 192)

UADs are great as well, but I wonder why he put them in tier 2...


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## Descent (Jun 12, 2016)

The Focusrite is quite popular, but my purchase will probably be the Roland in this lineup. 
Lookup PerSonus as well, I am still rocking an ageing FP10


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## IdentityDevice (Jun 13, 2016)

I got a Scarlett 2i4 and had nothing but driver issues with it. Couldn't get my signal low enough either even with the pad engaged and not even having hot pickups. Sent it back and got a Roland quad capture and love it! It's awesome. Seriously.


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## atoragon (Jun 13, 2016)

I wouldn't put line6 in the same category of behringer and samson, but in the higher one.
...and m-audio in a mid point between the "stable but nothing special" and the "meh" category.


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## takotakumi (Jun 13, 2016)

Masoo2 said:


> I have a Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 and I'd never recommend it. Super noisey preamps, constant driver issues (Windows), and it shuts off at least once every 8 hours or so randomly. My friend has even worse issues with his Scarlett Solo.



This. I get MAD when playing sometimes because I have it hookep up to my monitos and Kemper. I will be playing and it will randomly shut off and restart and it makes a big POP on the monitors. Drives me insane. I thought it was my laptop's usb ports or the cable but apparently im not the only one!


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## FifthCircleSquared (Jun 13, 2016)

I see Focusrite has released a "Mark 2" of the Scarlett 2i2 and 2i4, and they promised to correct their issues. 

..I have the one of the first 2i4's, and I have to say I've also struggled to get mine stable. Once I did, it was pretty good, but I'm in the market for a new interface and I don't think Focusrite is going to get my money.


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## Mathemagician (Jun 13, 2016)

Jesus that's a bad sign, I picked up a 2i4 from sweet water ~months ago on sale that's been sitting on my shelf because I've been busy with studies. I was looking forward to jamming/practicing with plug-ins but it looks like it may be a ....-show (and now I'm definitely outside of warranty). This thing used to get all the best reviews for entry level. 

Does it work better/more stable on Mac? If not, what's the closest-priced alternative that's stable/better?


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## FifthCircleSquared (Jun 13, 2016)

Uhh, I guess it's class compliant and doesn't need a driver on a Mac. PC guy here, so couldn't tell you if it's any more stable on a Mac.


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## takotakumi (Jun 13, 2016)

After this thread I am already hunting for a Quad capture and going to sell my 2i4 haha I honestly thought it was only me having this issues since it had so many great reviews


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## sezna (Jun 13, 2016)

Mathemagician said:


> Jesus that's a bad sign, I picked up a 2i4 from sweet water ~months ago on sale that's been sitting on my shelf because I've been busy with studies. I was looking forward to jamming/practicing with plug-ins but it looks like it may be a ....-show (and now I'm definitely outside of warranty). This thing used to get all the best reviews for entry level.
> 
> Does it work better/more stable on Mac? If not, what's the closest-priced alternative that's stable/better?



I have one that I've been using for years and have never had any of these problems. So it isn't a 100% sure thing.


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## prlgmnr (Jun 13, 2016)

My Scarlett 18i8 decides to .... the bed maybe once every few times I use it - as long as I go to preferences in Ableton, switch audio driver to my soundcard, turn off the interface, turn it back on again and switch back to the audio driver for the interface then I don't lose anything. So, you know, perfectly fine really and not annoying at all . Lost quite a few takes due to this before I worked out the failsafe recovery method though. Oh also it doesn't like it if I forget to bump the buffer back up for mixing after having it low for tracking with the lowest possible latency, but that's just good sense anyway. I wrote down an instruction to do this and stuck it on my monitor so I don't forget. 


It's probably because I used to have a different focusrite interface*, could do to do a clean install of the drivers.

*An 8i6 - it didn't crash but it did pick up interference from the internet connection


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## jerm (Jun 13, 2016)

I have been recently having issues with my 2i4 aswell. Loved it for a while but recently it's just been a huge pain in the ass.

The volume just shuts off completely (playback, but not input volume) I have to disconnect the USB cable and then re-attach it and all back to normal. It's an intermittent issue which is just annoying as hell. 

I think I may have fixed it, but only time will tell.


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## Casper777 (Jun 13, 2016)

Hard to beat MOTU in my opinion... super happy with my Track 16!


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## bostjan (Jun 13, 2016)

I've got a Presonus 1818VSL. I do not recommend. I've only owned it for about 4 months, and aside from the virtually nonexistent latency for the first month or so, I've had nothing but problems with it. There's not a lot of fine tuning with the gain, since the knobs are actually rotary switches, and one click from clipping might not be quite hot enough for some mics. I've been battling with my drivers constantly. Studio One had major issues that didn't help, either.


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## littlebadboy (Jun 13, 2016)

If I may ask, what was your old one and what was wrong with it?


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## Descent (Jun 13, 2016)

bostjan said:


> I've got a Presonus 1818VSL. I do not recommend. I've only owned it for about 4 months, and aside from the virtually nonexistent latency for the first month or so, I've had nothing but problems with it. There's not a lot of fine tuning with the gain, since the knobs are actually rotary switches, and one click from clipping might not be quite hot enough for some mics. I've been battling with my drivers constantly. Studio One had major issues that didn't help, either.



Interesting...I've been running S1 since version 1 and never had a hiccup on any of my machines. Maybe it is version 3? I haven't installed mine yet, I am on 2 as it is rock stable on Win7. I still refuse to go to any other version of Windows for recording.


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## bostjan (Jun 13, 2016)

Descent said:


> Interesting...I've been running S1 since version 1 and never had a hiccup on any of my machines. Maybe it is version 3? I haven't installed mine yet, I am on 2 as it is rock stable on Win7. I still refuse to go to any other version of Windows for recording.



Yeah, I use Rev 3. One of my key deciding points was the excellent reviews for Rev 2.

To its credit, when it runs at all, it usually runs fine. My issues are more on a grand scale of it completely crashing or locking me out completely.


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## Descent (Jun 13, 2016)

^ did you get the latest patches? I think they're up to ver. 3.2. 

I didn't upgrade yet due to the dark theme which I hate, plus ver. 2.6 has everything I need so far. I'll have to do an install to see what happens, I'd hate to find out later when I eventually upgrade that it is bad


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## shnizzle (Jun 13, 2016)

hm, i have a Scarlett 6i6 and have absolutely no issues with it what so ever. running
Win10 and Studio One V2 on a self built PC. i can monitor right in the full mix without
noticeable latency and it runs very stabil for longer periods of time. but i think when it
comes to latency any interface these days can give you very good results.


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## takotakumi (Jun 17, 2016)

Thanks to this thread I was able to sell my 2i4 and got the roland quad capure 







Its sooooooooo much better!
The 2i4, while connected, would restart if anything touched the cable or would do
randomly from time to time...which was driving me insane.I tried moving the quad while being connected to my pc and nothing happened  Just how it should be.


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## FifthCircleSquared (Jun 17, 2016)

How are the Pre's?


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## takotakumi (Jun 17, 2016)

FifthCircleSquared said:


> How are the Pre's?



Less Noisy. The 2i4 had a slight hum when I used both the kemper and pc and now thats gone. It also has the "autosens" button which presets the gain level to the point where the signal does not clip. I always prefer to do it manually though for the sake of being a bit more exact.


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## Vres (Jun 17, 2016)

jerm said:


> I have been recently having issues with my 2i4 aswell. Loved it for a while but recently it's just been a huge pain in the ass.
> 
> The volume just shuts off completely (playback, but not input volume)



Same sh*it happens with the affordable Line6 Pods as well (at least UX1 and Pod GX), but reconnecting the cable didn't help. You have to restart the PC. But what helped me greatly was ticking off "USB selective suspend setting" in Windows Control Panel > Power Plan Settings > Edit Plan Settings > Change advanced power settings. Or you could just switch to High Performance plan altogether. Playback would shut off every few hours before I did this, but now it does only maybe once or twice a month.

For me, the Pod GX is good enough and Podfarm is great for clean and solo guitar tones. No need for a new interface as long as this keeps working, and it has for like five years already.


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## PhilT (Jun 20, 2016)

I've been using the 2i4 for years now. Tried in a few different PCs and never had any issues. 

Maybe I've just been lucky so far


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## noise in my mind (Jun 20, 2016)

get a TC electronic konnect 6. My buddy and I have been using those and they sound great. Very stable too!


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## Genocyber (Jun 21, 2016)

I have the original UR22 and it's been great! the mk-ii has ipad connectivity...


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## Spinedriver (Jul 28, 2016)

Sorry for the late bump but I probably should have read this before I went shopping yesterday. The guy at the store was pimping the Scarlett 2i2 (new gen) pretty hard. Not because of the price but he said it had the best sounding pre-amp and that the "direct monitoring" was really great. Got the thing home and couldn't even get it to fire up. Apparently, it ONLY works on Windows 7 (64 bit), Win 8.1 and Win 10. There's a very specific update you have to have loaded in order for Windows to recognize the driver for it. I tried for a couple of hours to get the update loaded but for the life of me, could not get it to work.

I took it back to the store and the guy looked at me dumbfounded. I said I wanted the UR22 MKII instead but he was insisting that the Scarlett was much better. To which I replied, "It may be better but it doesn't do me a whole lot of good if I can't get it to work, does it ?" Needless to say, I got the UR22, brought it home and had it up & running inside of about 5 minutes.


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## aesthyrian (Jul 28, 2016)

What OS are you running that a Focusrite Scarlett would not work? Works great for me in Win 10 and also worked great in Win 7. With Win 10, you are pretty much forced to update so I don't understand how you can be missing a certain update that is preventing the scarlett to be recognized?

Either way, glad you found something that works for ya.


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## jerm (Jul 28, 2016)

^I think he has Win 7 32 bit by the way he responded earlier.


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## Spinedriver (Jul 28, 2016)

jerm said:


> ^I think he has Win 7 32 bit by the way he responded earlier.



Here's the message on the Focusrite site:

"Some Windows 7 PCs that do not have the latest Microsoft Windows updates may show an error regarding driver signing/not available. To resolve this, simply fully update your Windows 7. If you do not want to fully update Windows 7, the exact Microsoft update needed can be found HERE."

Even though I am running Windows in 64 bit, I haven't installed any updates in a while. So,I tried for 2-3 hours to get everything updated to the point where Windows was telling me that everything is up to date but it still gave me the "unsigned driver" error. Even when I went to get the specific update and try to install it manually, it would just give me the "searching for updates" box and just hang there. After doing some digging, I found that that the UR22 MKII is more or less just as good as the Scarlett. 

It's not like I'm going to be doing any kind of sophisticated recording or anything, it's just that I have been using my GSP1101 as an interface but it's sadly pretty limited. Whenever I fire up a DAW, the rest of the audio on my pc cuts out. Once I close the DAW, I have to reboot the GSP, otherwise the audio sounds all distorted. That and if I'm using a DAW, I can't use X-Edit at the same time. Basically, I just wanted a simple usb interface I could plug the GSP into to make things easier. So far the UR22 MKII seems to be working just like I wanted it to. It just would have been nice before hand that the 2i2 was dependent on THE most up to date versions of Windows in order to work.


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