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Cakewalk DAW interface on the blink replace with Focusrite Scarlett 6i6?


mfanning

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My beloved EMU 1616m is starting to go on the blink.  It has been a great audio interface on my 64-bit Windows 10 system.  I'm looking to maybe replace it with Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 USB audio interface because the affordable price of 219.00 at Sweetwater and also it looks like it has all the inputs and outputs that I need.   Will its performance be comparable to what I've been getting from the EMU.  I wonder about the USB vs PCIe  performance difference.   There are several really great reviews of the Scarlett 6i6 on Sweetwater but a number of others who hated it.  Anyone here have experience using it with Cakewalk? 

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@mfanning , you might find this relevant:

Last year i upgraded my DAW and compared performance of both a PCI and USB interface (Echo Layla 3G and Scarlett 6i6 USB) on both computers. My findings are described here:

VIVALDI is the new ROSSINI, part 1

VIVALDI is the new ROSSINI, part 2

Buried amongst the rambling on computer specs, you will find some comparable Audio IO performance values.

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27 minutes ago, Colin Nicholls said:

@mfanning , you might find this relevant:

Last year i upgraded my DAW and compared performance of both a PCI and USB interface (Echo Layla 3G and Scarlett 6i6 USB) on both computers. My findings are described here:

VIVALDI is the new ROSSINI, part 1

VIVALDI is the new ROSSINI, part 2

Buried amongst the rambling on computer specs, you will find some comparable Audio IO performance values.

It doesn't surprise me that PCI gets better latency than USB, as its much closer to the CPU.

I normally run my 6i6 with a buffer size of 64.

However, with the very latest drivers I've been running fairly light projects with a buffer size of 16 on my 1st 6i6, and running slightly more demanding ones with a buffer size of 32.

As long as you stick to ASIO, the latest 6i6 drivers are great... just don't swap between ASIO / WASAPI with these drivers... it'll blue screen :(

 

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34 minutes ago, Colin Nicholls said:

@mfanning , you might find this relevant:

Last year i upgraded my DAW and compared performance of both a PCI and USB interface (Echo Layla 3G and Scarlett 6i6 USB) on both computers. My findings are described here:

VIVALDI is the new ROSSINI, part 1

VIVALDI is the new ROSSINI, part 2

Buried amongst the rambling on computer specs, you will find some comparable Audio IO performance values.

Colin, thanks for the great information and detailed analysis.   Its good to have comparisons to other interfaces.   

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35 minutes ago, Colin Nicholls said:

@mfanning , you might find this relevant:

Last year i upgraded my DAW and compared performance of both a PCI and USB interface (Echo Layla 3G and Scarlett 6i6 USB) on both computers. My findings are described here:

VIVALDI is the new ROSSINI, part 1

VIVALDI is the new ROSSINI, part 2

Buried amongst the rambling on computer specs, you will find some comparable Audio IO performance values.

Thanks for sharing this, Colin. Nice work. I'm looking at a Dell XPS 8930 (i7, maybe i9) right now and am eager to see the performance jump from a third generation i5 that just died on me. Just wish I could use the 32gigs of DDR3 Ram from the old machine in the new one (DDR4) , but I've read that's not possible. A new NVMe SSD to run things should help too!

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8 minutes ago, msmcleod said:

It doesn't surprise me that PCI gets better latency than USB, as its much closer to the CPU.

I normally run my 6i6 with a buffer size of 64.

However, with the very latest drivers I've been running fairly light projects with a buffer size of 16 on my 1st 6i6, and running slightly more demanding ones with a buffer size of 32.

As long as you stick to ASIO, the latest 6i6 drivers are great... just don't swap between ASIO / WASAPI with these drivers... it'll blue screen :(

 

Mark, thanks for weighing in.  I will be using only ASIO drivers.  One big advantage of USB for me would be that I could also use it on my laptop.  Thanks!

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I use a first gen 6i6 with CbB. My projects are not too intense - 30 or 40 tracks, audio and MIDI. Round trip latency is acceptable to me, but I haven't adjusted the buffers in so long I can't remember what the settings are. I think RTL playing guitar through a sim is 10 - 12 msec. I understand the second gen units are faster, and the software mixer is much better. Focusrite MixControl (which comes with the 1st gen) is not user friendly. Overall, though, I'm happy with my 6i6. Best of luck.

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