I searched the Internet for hours but I did not find the answer to this. Basically, I DO NOT PLAN ON RECORDING ANYTIME SOON. I just make EDM and Hip Hop Beats. In the coming months I plan to buy a good MIDI Keyboard but I do not understand whether I should be buying an Audio Interface. Everybody advises to buy an interface if you want to record, but what about just using ASIO4All instead? Will I really get any improvement in sound quality, if I use an interface and I would not be recording anything live... all VSTi.
I use internal mobo sound right now. Also I did not understand much of the technical terms relating to sound cards. Will I get improvements in latency?

 

any good interface will give you direct monitoring with zero or next to zero latency

 

if you ask yourself this question means you don't need it

 

If it all works fine, as it is, then no, you don't need an audio interface.

However, you might find that when using your MIDI keyboard the latency you currently have (using your mobo) is too high to enable you to play properly (latency is the delay between pressing keyboard, and sound coming out).

See, ideally you want the impossible - no delay (latency) whatsoever, so you can play in realtime. But the lower this delay is, the harder your computer and sound device have to work. And this can lead to the computer getting overloaded, meaning you can only run a few tracks of sounds, rather than many at once.

This is one reason why people get a fast capable computer, with a fast connection to an audio interface which has good drivers for the Operating System, all of which works well with the DAW of choice.

I would suggest you carry on as you are. But, once you get your MIDI keyboard, and maybe your compositions increase in complexity etc, you may find you exhaust the capabilities of your current setup. [Usually experienced as stutters and glitces in audio] An obvious next step is then to get an audio interface (which will likely extend the capability of your setup).

**Note, the latency (buffer) can be adjusted, even in ASIO4ALL : the lower the buffer the quicker response time, but the harder the computer and sound device need to work. Increasing the buffer reduces the workload of the computer and sound-device, but it introduces more "lag" (which makes playing an instrument in realtime more difficult).

 

you can get benefit from the unison pre-amps which are great!
i own 2 uad device and i love them, in the beginning i had some issues but i figured them out and i'm totally happy with my babies

Edited:
sorry i didn't pay attention to the tread!
But if you are not recording then i think the answer is NO!

 

Last edited: Apr 23, 2019

So many variables where to start? Asio4all is a driver making it possible to useAsio in most 16bit class compliant sound cards (IE onboard sound card) all Asio4all does is run your card more efficient it does not make your card better!
Performance wise it depends on what specs your computer has CPU/ Ram/ and most importantly Cashe. you say you wanna do EDM & Rap beats, these can get rather intensive and depending on what plugins you use can also be a factor if you're just using loops and drawing in midi notes then ASIO4ALL will be fine. but once you add a midi keyboard thats when you gonna see the difference. regardless with your onboard sound card, you will be limited to a few tracks and 16-bit audio when most of us record at 32 bit.
How will you know when its time to upgrade? during playback, you will hear a lot of pops /clicks and audio dropouts when just trying to play your beats back. thats your sound card trying to keep up and failing. sometime your daw will freeze as well. so try it and see how far you get. there are loads of proper ASIO cards out there used dirt cheap there are loads of them on eBay. If you are on Windows do a little research on google beforehand so driver are a bit iffy ( Motu's windows drivers were really bad for a really long time) Old MSI Mia or EMU 0404 are decent cards to start with and dirt cheap
Hope that helps, these are all bare-bones ideas if you have more of a budget we all can help you spend your money wisely ;)

 

well to be honest , with today's ultra fast and powerful computers no, you don't really need an audio interface if the only things you do is playing softsynths and making beats and using vocal samples or loops. asio4all, set to a very low sample will give you low latency, and probably you gonna use quantise for ur edm needs. so the answer is a : NO . interfaces have very good quality headphone outputs though ! when u done ur song and you bounce it, it should sound the same both straight from your computer or from an audio interface. i use an audio interface with my desktop computer cause i record electric guitar and vocals there, zero latency monitoring there with effects. on my laptop i only use asio for all with ableton, without interface. i also use the laptop for mixing only in pro tools, again asio4all only..

 

so you don't record vocals either?

 

Last edited: Apr 24, 2019

watch out for real High End Analog stage on the mainboard! The buffer Op-amps are somtime cheap shit (like on some USB interfaces, lol)
ALSO dont use the 3.5mm Stereo shitty plugs with very bad cable quality.
Use the optical output if possible and then have no problems with GROUND LOOPS!

Here is an example of a great Audio Output Stage, read it carefully https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/G1Sniper-A88X-rev-30#ov
i mean changeable Op Amps!!! Audio Noise Guard! Gain Boost Nichicon Pro Audio Caps
I use this board and its SIGNIFICANTLY better than any other bullshit.
This one is old, so i assume, other Companies might have jumped the bandwagon and upgraded their audio output stage too, but i use Gigabyte only...

 

I'd get that 20 Dollar Behringer interface if latency with asio4all is too high (which i doubt).

edit: forget my comment, according to a member posting below this post the cheapo Behringers actually use asio4all and do not have dedicated drivers of their own.

 

Last edited: Apr 24, 2019

there is no audio latency problem INSIDE the Box. Only if you record realtime midi or audio and play in with f.i. a Midi Keyboard.
He said he works on EDM only so he might only drag loops or adds MIDI via mouse.

 

what the guy above me said would be ok if it were not the fact that Behringer uses ASIO4ALL as it drivers, The only real upside is that you would have real midi in and out,and direct montering(hardware depending). as many others have stated...If your computer is on point and has more than enough to run in the box vst(i)'s and such then you should be all good with what you already are using.I only have a few interfaces laying around for the occasional time when I need to record some one or some one playing an instrument, guitar, my old synth etc etc but if none of this applies to you then you should just be fine with what you have. Best of luck

 

just a home producer still... i am not good at singing and nobody else i know sings

the latency gets real high with some plugins.. i doubt you have hear of an effect plugin called movement by output. its so damn cpu heavy, even diva uses less cpu than it. probably its due to bad plugin quality itself. but i have an i5 6th gen cpu.

I plan to get a midi keyboard if I really start making good COMPLETE songs

i cannot get any complete song to play without stuttering with anything below 1024 samples (latency). there are also these options, "mix in buffer switch" and "triple buffer". what do i do of them?

Thanks all, how do you think of audio technica m20x as a headphone which i will use from start to finish in every song? Budget is limited, imported things are very costly where I live.
Also after changing sample rate to 44Khz (in realtek hd audio) my song sounds exactly the same as it sounded in FL Studio but when I change it to 48Khz, playback quality changes completely. Why was this happening? Sample rate everywhere INSIDE fl was 44.1Khz but OUTSIDE (VLC, etc.) was 48Khz. Is this due to not mastering my songs?

 

If you only paint notes, playing instruments with a latency over 10 ms feels anything else than good.

 

if you're going to play virtual instruments realtime, then you are recording, practically doesn't matter if input is MIDI keyboard, or real instrument;
audio interface still needs to process digital data into audible form, and that takes some time (which introduces latency),
ASIO4ALL driver basically rapes your CPU into processing audio, on the other hand dedicated ASIO audio interface will do that on their own, leaving your CPU available for actual use;
on Mac situation is easier, because CoreAudio as part of MacOS itself can effectively handle audio regardless of audio interface you use

 

at moment ...i did buy new dt770 headphones 117eu the 990 cost 122 or so...so on my surf- laptop(old projects i want to finish are on them) i dont use one, cause beyerdynamic dt770 have big and small jacks and asio4all but i guess it worx also with other asio but not all of them..

dont buy cheap midi keyboard...better buy older ones from ebay...arturias old one eg ...
maybe you want more a midi controller then midi keyboard also need to be considered

almost everything i bought was a miss and things what was proper i did sell ha ha fockn idiot...but i come to it slowly...

 

Last edited: Apr 24, 2019

what do u mean...headphones ?

 

fuck yeah

 

Try and stretch to audio technica ATH m50x headphones if you can, about £100, rock solid, detatchable cable [comes with 3 so you can safely break one [not that easy, either], awesome headphone, very popular for electronic music, great frequency response etc. Better built than the previous ATH m50 which i wore to death over a good few years.... the cheaper ATH-m20 models are great for cheap phones if you are desperate but the extra is really worth it for a great all rounder. My internal soundcard seems fine without ASIO4all, and i try and stick to vsts I know are quite cpu light so I can run 30+ channels of vsts with huge FX chain on a fairly low-spec i5 laptop. In the spirit of sharing here is my list of the main stuff i use and how...sub- sylenth, surge [free and awesome] cyclop [very consistent sine bass] leads and bass-serum, surge [wavetable stuff] cyclop [weird and cruchy stuff], hive, sylenth [standard 2 osc type stuff] , circle [great semi modular] chromaphone [physical modelling] riser [does what it says on the tin].............. fx- valhalla verbs, effectrix [usually better than micro editing for my workflow esp when combined with beat repeat] uhbik for flange and phasers, ableton stock compressor, delay, eq [love their simplicity and possibilities, eg using simple delay in pitch mode for haas and flange fx] presswerk for juicier compression, fabfilter pro q3 for precision eq and fabfilter limiter. Input is mouse and computer keyboard

 

Unless you're going to record through a microphone, you don't need an interface.

Keep it as simple as possible if you can. The interface won't help you. Not with the latency. Quite the opposite.

Let me share my experience:

I am a happy user of a very modest, budget setup (making some electronic stuff during the long nights as a pure hobby):
Laptop Core i5 8GB RAM Win 10 x64, Studio One, M-Audio Code 61 keyboard, KRK Rokit 5 monitors, that's it.

I bought a Behringer UMC204HD interface (192 kHz) 'cause it "must be better with some interface", right? Perhaps, it will run smoother or at least the sound will be cleaner or something, right?
The truth is that I found myself in a spiral: Suddenly, two more cables were needed (not exactly a cheap thing), then a USB hub was needed which had its issues and it turned out the sound was not as clean as it was before. Most importantly, the latency became a serious issue. My assumption that the interface will somehow take a bit of load from CPU was flawed.
The benefits were equal to zero. After two weeks I took advantage of the possibility to return the item to the store.

Just to clarify a few details mentioned above:

To my knowledge, the interface will not offer any better, cleaner or enhanced MIDI connection. A direct USB connection (from your MIDI instrument to a USB plug in your computer) will already cover everything you might need, all the knobs can be mapped, the XY pad works, all the modulations, pitch bend, after touch, even special modulation features for other instruments are read properly (as tested with a buddy of mine).

Also, apart from the cheapest one, the Behringers do come with dedicated drivers (downloadable from their website) so you can choose that in Studio One and don't necessarily need to use ASIO4ALL, however, there is, again, no tangible benefit from that, or none I would know of.

Hope this can be of some help.