USB Audio interface options

wmorris8

Hello all, I’m looking for compact mixer in order to move to Loopy Pro as my looper, from the RC505 MKII which has all the audio interfaces integrated.
The Zoom L6 looks like a perfect fit, but this review seems to reveal major shortfalls with the L6 (for how I’m trying to use it). Anyone tried to use L6 with USB audio, coming back to unit, and sending it to Main outs and Aux Sends ? or other suggestions ? mic in (XLR), guitar in (use effects within Loopy Pro), 1 or 2 other stereo in, then need to get main output and aux (monitor) outputs back out to HW outputs (so need stereo main out, and stereo out for a monitor mix.

block diagram on page 105
https://zoomcorp.com/media/documents/E_L6.pdf

Amazon review:
I wanted this to be a small 10 inputs, 4 outputs audio interface. Unfortunately, in order to get 4 outputs, you have to sacrafice 4 inputs. So you end up with 6 inputs and 4 outputs. You have to enable USB 1/2 on channel 5 to get ANY audio output from your computer. This immediately knocks the number of inputs down to 8.

Then if you want to use the Aux's as unique audio outputs, you have to enable AUX's on channel 6 to pre-fader and then arm USB 3/4 to get them to function as expected. This then knocks your inputs down to a total of 6.

Then on top of that, the ASIO buffer is too big and latency is too much. 48khz with a 128 sample buffer is 19ms. Normally, on any other ASIO device, that should be around 8ms.

I would have figured the "Master" output of the L6, when set to USB ASIO audio interface mode, would have sourced the ASIO 1/2 output by default. Instead, it is still only monitoring the live inputs of the L6 analog mixer. There is no way to disable live monitoring of the inputs so if you plan on having audio go into the L6, through your DAW, then out your Master outputs, you can't do that without also including the dry input signal as well. Think of this in terms of a vocal. You want to plug your mic into input 1 of the L6. You then want to route that vocal through your DAW and be affected by plugins. You then want to route that affected vocal to your master output. With the L6, you cannot do this without also including the "dry" vocal in the Master Output mix.

I realize its a small and cheap device but this was advertized in a way that made it seem like it would function as a standard audio interface. I can understand having to sacrafice inputs to allow more outputs but the fact that you need to get rid of 2 inputs to get ANY output from your computer is a bit weird. Then you also have to always hear your "dry" inputs through the master when that is never desireable. On top of that the buffer is too long already. Oh well. Probably a great portable mixer for other applications. Not a viable USB audio interface for realtime DAW monitoring. Youtubers skipped over the audio interface aspect and I guess I can see why.

The only way to get 2 100% wet tracks with no "live/dry monitoring" tracks out of this device is to enable USB outputs 3/4, assign them to AUX 1 and 2 (set those to pre-fader as well), set your DAWs master output to 3/4 and then you get 2 "wet" tracks from your DAW out of Aux1 and Aux2. This makes it so your headphones cant hear the wet signal, so it kind of defeats the purpose, but this is the only way to do what most people would expect an "ASIO audio interface" to do

wmorris8

BTW, I have an XR18 but need small portable set up, don’t want to lug that around or require another device to change key settings live. Thought I’d be creative and try to live with Revelator io44, and use my HX Stomp USB audio out but haven’t made that work yet.. need monitor out and headphone out won’t provide only loopy pro output

reasOne

Its pricey. But i use the teenage engineering TX-6
Haven’t really tested it with loopy but i abuse it with aum