delay on own audio signal with windows + Behringer UMC204HD

[sbg-1]

Hi there,

I am new to Jamulus, and joined in order to continue my (acoustic guitar) lessons with my guitar teacher, who has moved across country but continues to teach online through Jamulus.

I purchased a Behringer U-Phoria UMC204HD audio interface in order to connect my mic to jamulus. I specifically chose this interface because another student of hers has been using it successfully for the same purpose. For me, however, I can't seem to get it to work properly. I feel like I’ve tried everything I can think of, I'm now not sure what to do anymore, and hoping someone here knows what else I can try.

I will try to outline what the problem is, what system I have, and what I have already tried to fix the issue below but it is a bit of a “wall of text” for which I apologize in advance.

The problem:
The problem I am experiencing is that there is significant delay on my own audio signal, making it difficult to talk and almost impossible to play guitar (it almost sounds like a flanger effect). My guitar teacher gets my signal with no to minimal delay and clear, and can keep in sync with me just fine. I hear her just fine as well, with minimal delay, but curiously, I hear my own signal with significant delay. Her other students don’t experience this. I’ve actually gone over to another student’s house (who also uses the Behringer UMC204HD but with a Mac, more on that later) and he does not have the delay on his own signal at all. It was perfectly possible to play guitar listening to my own signal in my headphones.

My setup is as follows:

• A Dell XPS laptop running windows 10
• A Rode NT1 (4th gen) microphone, used to pick up both my voice and my acoustic guitar (same as the other students)
• Sennheiser HD 280 pro headphones
• (stable and fast) internet connection to the router via an ethernet cable (+usb adapter piece)
  -the Behringer UMC204HD, plus the driver version 5.57, which shows up in Jamulus just fine (as “UMC ASIO driver”).
  -my guitar teacher has a dedicated server, and, as mentioned, successfully teaches other students this way.
  -(I tried to figure out which version of jamulus I have, but it doesn't show it under properties. i downloaded it from the jamulus website around the 20th of september though, so it should be newest one?)

What I have already tried:
-I've played with all the settings on Jamulus that I could think of, but that doesn't really seem to do anything.
-I also checked my laptop’s settings, specifically that the Behringer audio interface is set as the correct input and output device and on (what seem to me) the appropriate channel(s).
-I matched all the settings of the other student with the Behringer’s UMC204HD interface on my own interface.

Furthermore, I checked the following:
-It's not a problem with the hardware itself, because I tested the headphones, microphone and the Behringer interface all separately with the other student’s (working) setup. He himself has does have a Mac desktop (and thus doesn’t have to download the behringer driver separately), and there it all runs perfectly fine with my interface + mic + headphones. As soon as I hooked it up to my laptop again, however, I got the same delay issue, even on his network (so that doesn't seem to be it either).
-Just out of curiosity I then tried another ASIO driver (ASIO4ALL) that happened to still be on my laptop (from a different mic set up that also did not work, I've been at this for a while now). To my surprise, the delay was almost gone and the issue was basically “fixed”. (Unfortunately, this driver also controls the internal boxes and microphone on my laptop, and there is not really a way I can find to turn those off which causes interference between the Rode mic and the internal mic. So continuing to use that isn't really an option.)

The conclusion I’ve drawn from this weeks long troubleshooting session is that the problem must be somewhere between my laptop and the Behringer driver. Perhaps it was a problem with windows 10 and my outdated laptop?
-So, just in case it might be a windows 10/my laptop problem, I also tried the same setup on another laptop running windows 11 (a Dell inspiron 15 3515), but there again I had the exact same problem: an unworkable delay on my own audio signal. (To really deepen the mystery/my befuddlement, I do know of someone who uses a windows 11 laptop with a UMC404HD and Jamulus just fine… so it is possible on windows just not for me???)

With that, I've basically exhausted all the options I can think of, and I don't know what to try anymore to get the Behringer interface to work. Admittedly I'm not much of an audio/tech girlie, but I feel like I've tried everything I can think of already.
-(I am still going to try my guitar teacher's audio interface, who has a Focusrite scarlett 4th gen running on a windows 11 PC. Maybe that one (+ its driver) will work, and then I'll know for sure that the problem really lies with Behringer's driver+windows/my pc. But it will be a while before I can meet up with her, and if I decide to return the Behringer interface to the dealer because I cannot get it to work, I will have to do so in accordance with the dealer’s return policy before I can try my teacher’s scarlett interface).

I don't know what more I can do to get Jamulus+ the behringer interface working properly on my PC. The fact that it does work perfectly with a Mac, but not for me on another PC with windows 11 baffles me, and I’m kind of at my wit’s end with this problem. Surely one would think that if there actually is a problem with Behringer's driver for both windows 10 and 11 that a simple google search would find many more people struggling with this? And yet, I don’t see that pop up either when I do.

I have contacted Behringer tech support and have yet to hear from them, but figured that maybe someone versed in Jamulus might also have some useful input.

If you’ve made it to here, thank you so much for reading through all of this and I hope someone can help me fix this issue and continue my guitar lessons! Or least give me some new things to try before I have to return the Behringer :)

[jujudusud]

How did you set the frame size in UMC control panel?
Is the headphone directly connected to the USB interface?
Did you uninstall asio4all properly?

[sbg-1]

Thanks for your replies!

1. I don't know if I can set the frame size in the UMC control panel tbh? When I open it I get options for sample rate (48000Hz) and preferred ASIO buffer size (182 samples). I don't see anything about frame size. A quick google search didn't provide more clarity on this issue either. Am I missing something?

2. yes, the headphones are directly plugged into the audio interface

3. no, i did not uninstall asio4all yet. That's how I figured out (by accident) that it is possible to listen to my own sound without (noticeable) delay, by selecting asio4all as my driver in jamulus (the only problem with that is that it also drives my laptop's mic and speakers, so feedback becomes an issue). Do you think uninstalling it would make any difference?

someone else also asked if I could swap my interface with the other students one and test if it's a device issue (but curiously that message doesn't show up here as it did in my email)
4) no, I haven't tried that. I did connect my interface to his Macbook, and there it worked just fine so I didn't think to connect his interface to my laptop. Because mine worked just fine with his mac i'm guessing it isn't a device issue, but I can always try his and check for sure.

Thanks again for your input!

[jujudusud]

1. Sample rate at 48kHz IS ok. You can go down to 128 samples for the buffer size and disable the "safe mode" radio button. No you miss nothing at all. ;-)
2. Nice.
3. The advice in Jamulus' manual is : Use the customers ASIO driver if it is existing. You should uninstall ASIO4ALL and Don't use it With your Behringer UMC.
4. Look at the interface button "input/playback" ans put it fully to playback side.

[sbg-1]

Hi!
Thanks for getting back to me and your suggestions! Sorry for the belated response.

Here are my findings:

1. OK, I did, nothing much changed though. But nice to know I didn't miss anything :-D
2. Nice.
3. I uninstalled all the other drivers, that didn't do much either*
4. I changed this (on in interface itself I presume), also didn't seem to make much of a difference.
5. (in complete desperation) I also tried a different hub to connect my laptop to the lan cable (my laptop doesn't have a dedicated port), and that shaved off a few seconds on Jamulus' ping/delay display, but nothing noticeably changed in the delay on my own audio signal
6. I've also been in contact with Behringer support, they suggested uninstalling the newer driver for the interface and installing an older version for troubleshooting purposes, and that didn't change anything either. the signal was more or less the same. I've reported this back to them and will wait for their response.
7. I'll have access to two different audio interfaces somewhere in the coming two weeks (a yamaha and a focusrite) so I'll have to wait on those to see if I have the same issues or if its a behringer specific issue.

*before I uninstalled it, I did test out the asio4all driver with my guitar teacher on the other end. When I previously tested it on her empty server my audio seemed noticeably better (less delay) so I figured that meant that the issue was with the behringer driver. However, when I tried switching to asio4all with my teacher on the other end I didn't hear anything at all anymore and she heard me much worse. I'm not entirely sure what this means (other than that I have no need to reinstall asio4all ;-), but it does maybe lessen the "evidence" that it's definitely the behringer driver that's causing the issue... maybe? I'm not sure of anything anymore other than that my head hurts from thinking about this so much :'-)

Still very much open to suggestions, and I will also update here if I find out anything new. Thanks!

[QJKX]

Once connected, what are the Ping and Delay numbers?