Re: Apogee Duet vs. Motu Ultralite

[andy butler <akbutler@tiscali.co.uk>]

hi Chris,
I'd guess that the Duet is aimed at the recording studio
rather than live playing.
Ignoring the buffer size of 512, I've heard that within AD/DA
converters higher latency goes with higher quality, and indeed
this appears to be the case with some of my gear.

As to the 512 sample thing, it's most likely a driver issue
that hasn't been fixed because no-one complained to Apogee yet.
I had a similar problem, although it was with a Focusrite interface
on a pc, and the latest drivers fixed it right away.

 

There's also the possibility this may be a mac thing, a couple of
years ago I found out from a guy who does the drivert software for
one of the larger audio hardware companies that Macs always use
something called SRC( sample rate conversion) on the audio. 
This innovation was, afaik, brought
in to facilitate the 'solving' of clock sync problems with multiple 
devices,
...by simply avoiding the need.
Anyway, with SRC there's always a compromise between quality and latency,
the calculations are rather intensive more processor power is needed as
quality goes up. As with the Duet it's quality that's of ultimate 
importance
I wonder if they simply maxed out on the SRC calculations.

andy butler




Chris Sewell wrote:
> So I picked up an Apogee Duet this week. It does sound really, really 

> The only real problem I have with it is when using it with Ableton, I'm 
> getting some pretty crazy latency issues. It defaults to 512 samples in 
> the buffer when you first connect it, and I was experiencing latency of 
> good 1/2 second. Bringing it down to 256 didn't make a difference 
> initially. I then have to unplug the Duet, then turn it back on, and 
> restart Live for the change to kick in. It then improved greatly. But 
> adding devices to a channel sometimes would knock back out of the 
> setting. Although the buffer remained, the long lag would reappear, 
> requiring another restart. Very weird. I made sure the drivers were the 
> latest versions, but this still occurs.