I’ve been in the weeds with a new setup and have discovered that not all interfaces accurately report latency to the OS.
For example, the Teenage Engineering TX-6 reports 11.1ms round trip to macOS, but when I do a loop back test with a metronome or use the RTL Utility app, I see that the actual latency is closer to 16ms.
This means that any DAW is placing all recordings 4-5ms late (175-215 samples at 48khz), because they only compensates for the amount of latency reported by the interface.
That might not seem like a big deal, but that 4-5ms error compounds with every overdub. If one does lots of overdubs in recordings (like I do) that becomes problematic very quickly.
In Logic on the iPad things are even worse. The TX-6 is about 7-8ms (350-400 samples) late beyond what iPadOS thinks the latency is
I also tested a MOTU M4 which seems to underreport its latency by about 1ms (48 samples at 48khz). Not bad, but could potentially be a problem with lots of overdubs.
By contrast, my Apollo X8 is pretty much sample accurate with the latency it reports. It ranges anywhere from 0-3 samples deviation. When I do a loop back test, the metronome clicks fall exactly on the beat.
What have your experiences have been like? Does anyone know how these things actually work, and why one interface might report more accurately than another? Does this all come down to driver quality?
I’m kind of surprised there isn’t more discussion about these things (at least that I’ve been able to find). Thanks!
You can turn off latency compensation in Abelton Live, and try to record, also there is a driver error compensation, you can choose an offset in Live, other DAW might have similar settings.
I bought an RME interface because I wanted great preamps and a rock solid reliable driver. I’ve never had any kind of issues on my PC. Funny you mention T.E. because I was just thinking about how their new recording products look hugely style and cost over substance.
This is exactly the reason why Driver Compensation Error in Ableton exists (in case this is your DAW)
There’s nice in-built tutorial on how to measure and set it up
Yeah at this point I’ve got a good grasp of the offset values of the different interfaces and how to plug those values into the DAW. (Ableton = driver error compensation, Logic = recording delay, etc)
I’m just surprised and annoyed that I have to do it!
Furthermore, I don’t want to have to run a test every time I switch to a new machine, or switch interfaces, or switch to a new DAW.
If there are certain interfaces like the Apollo that have the value dead on, I’m interested to know about them.
Aside from this issue with the interface driver, the TX-6 is actually a wonderfully functional device, especially for synth people. Which is why I so desperately want this to be fixed. And to their credit, TE have been very responsive to my inquiries about it.
