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asio4all - a software solution to allow multiple soundcards in Windows. (Read 15084 times)

Bubba

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In order to use software such as Ableton Live or Traktor to mix "live" you need to have a sound output channel and a monitoring channel for cuing up the next track, etc.

If you have a soundcard that has more than one output channel then this isn't an issue, but if as in my case you have more than one soundcard installed you are stuffed as AL/Traktor won't allow you to select different soundcards for output.

Mac OS allows the aggregation of more than one soundcard into one effective device, but Windows (XP or Vista) has no facility to allow this. Linux will also allow this but the audio software isn't there to make this worthwhile anyway.

Step up Asio4all. This clever Asio driver allows you to channel output to different soundcards. Although my first experiments with this were a disaster - terrible sound quality/doubling of bpm!/slow response, a bit of fiddling with settings has come up with a solution that seems to work really well.

I've not set this up in AL yet but here are my settings in Traktor Pro:





For some reason I had to use output pair 5&6 from the creative card, 1&2 / 3&4 gave no sound.

It is a good idea to get the buffer offset as low as you can.

This solution will never be as good as having a multi-output soundcard but it's better than nothing.

Hope that helps if you have similar problems.





« Last Edit: November 22, 2008, 12:02:46 pm by Bubba »

Houdini

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I can't get a test tone w/ these drivers in Live, in other words, Live won't recognise asio.  Live recommends asio ... 

I've no idea what's wrong or how to sort it.  I'm being lazy and ignoring it and dealing w/ the overall latency of 50 ms w/ the native drivers, it's gash but workable if you're not into hiphop style cuts.  I'll ignore it untill I can afford an external mackie card.

Houdini

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Just installed it in Live 8, seems to have lost me 30ms of latency which is a good thing, and this is just w/ the standard internal soundcard.

I've set it to 192 samples which seems OK thus far.  Though I have had two shutdowns in a row where I fiddled too far and vista said NO and went to sleep.

Still have 18.9ms overall latency; I've heard one can reduce this to 2ms w/ correct tweeking.

Bubba

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I reckon since you've splashed out on a real copy of Live 8 you owe it to yourself to get a proper 2 channel soundcard. I'm not sure this will ever be as good tbh.

Seems to work ok messing about in Traktor but if I was ever DJing live with it I'd invest in a new soundcard.

Houdini

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The € spent on 8 was to be spent on an ext card and monitors  >:(

Will get there eventually  :)

Getting round the lack of decent bins w/ my new cans

http://audiotechnica.wordpress.com/2008/01/23/audio-technica-ath-m50-review/



« Last Edit: October 29, 2009, 09:01:06 am by Houdini »

Bubba

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Houdini

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Just got this ext soundcard.  €200  OK thus far.  Wanted firewire really, but I've no firewire socket and couldn't be arse investigating the expansion card route.  Not w/ this PC, perhaps in a few years when it's dead.

Bought a pair of KRK RP5 active studio monitors too (€300), The technorium's pretty small so anything larger would be OTT.  These will suffice for a few years, probably till we move house and I can afford some Adams (and a sub).

Still got plenty of fiddling to do re: ASIO.


 

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