Comments on: How To: Solve Garbled Audio on Windows by Adjusting Driver Settings http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/05/02/how-to-solve-garbled-audio-on-windows-with-simple-settings/ The latest gear, software, and techniques for electronic music production and performance Thu, 20 Nov 2008 12:31:43 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 By: mrthraz http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/05/02/how-to-solve-garbled-audio-on-windows-with-simple-settings/#comment-5207 mrthraz Mon, 15 May 2006 10:33:50 +0000 http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/05/02/how-to-solve-garbled-audio-on-windows-with-simple-settings/#comment-5207 i must say that asio4all in combination with virtual audio cable has solved all of my soundcard problems. i really could not spend alot of money on my soundcard (all i have is a turtlebeach santa cruz. a good card that doesnt support asio) but with those two apps, + flstudio 6 and audition 2.0, i find i don't need much else. i got ahold of the sampson c01u usb condenser mic, the ion usb turntable and the creative pro dikeys pc-midi usb. all the rest of my mixers, preamps, cords cables cards and plugs can take a fling ebay leap. now if only someone would make a nice pair of usb desktop audio monitors. i must say that asio4all in combination with virtual audio cable has solved all of my soundcard problems. i really could not spend alot of money on my soundcard (all i have is a turtlebeach santa cruz. a good card that doesnt support asio) but with those two apps, + flstudio 6 and audition 2.0, i find i don’t need much else.
i got ahold of the sampson c01u usb condenser mic, the ion usb turntable and the creative pro dikeys pc-midi usb.

all the rest of my mixers, preamps, cords cables cards and plugs can take a fling ebay leap.

now if only someone would make a nice pair of usb desktop audio monitors.

]]> By: fruity loops http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/05/02/how-to-solve-garbled-audio-on-windows-with-simple-settings/#comment-3828 fruity loops Sun, 07 May 2006 06:01:49 +0000 http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/05/02/how-to-solve-garbled-audio-on-windows-with-simple-settings/#comment-3828 Definatly check out Asio4All, it's helped my reduce latency while keeping high quality sound. I use it with a Soundblaster Audigy NX 2, which doesn't support ASIO out of the box, and it works great. I really enjoy this site and find it very useful. Check out my Fruity Loops site if you're using or thinking about getting FL Studio. <a href="http://fruity--loops.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">Fruity Loops Resource</a> Definatly check out Asio4All, it’s helped my reduce latency while keeping high quality sound. I use it with a Soundblaster Audigy NX 2, which doesn’t support ASIO out of the box, and it works great. I really enjoy this site and find it very useful. Check out my Fruity Loops site if you’re using or thinking about getting FL Studio. Fruity Loops Resource

]]> By: Adrian http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/05/02/how-to-solve-garbled-audio-on-windows-with-simple-settings/#comment-3431 Adrian Wed, 03 May 2006 20:52:58 +0000 http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/05/02/how-to-solve-garbled-audio-on-windows-with-simple-settings/#comment-3431 I gotta tell you Peter, CoreAudio is the one thing that gets me envious of the OSX platform. It just straight works better than what the standard Windows drivers do. But then again, Windows gets like 98% of the cool new audio plug-ins and software, many of which are free, so that helps ;-) ATA I gotta tell you Peter, CoreAudio is the one thing that gets me envious of the OSX platform. It just straight works better than what the standard Windows drivers do. But then again, Windows gets like 98% of the cool new audio plug-ins and software, many of which are free, so that helps ;-)

ATA

]]> By: kokorozashi http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/05/02/how-to-solve-garbled-audio-on-windows-with-simple-settings/#comment-3426 kokorozashi Wed, 03 May 2006 19:39:19 +0000 http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/05/02/how-to-solve-garbled-audio-on-windows-with-simple-settings/#comment-3426 Let's hope. Most of what I've seen promoted has been about consumers and not "professionals" (which includes anyone who cares about audio production even if it's not their day job). And a colleague who attended a recent developer workshop at Microsoft about Vista audio wasn't very impressed. That said, it seems reasonable to hope you'll get at least some of your wishes. My primary concern at this point is that Vista will continue to slip and get cut down. I think the smartest teams at Microsoft right now are making sure their projects also run on XP "just in case," and audio is not something which lends itself to that kind of bet-hedging. Let’s hope. Most of what I’ve seen promoted has been about consumers and not “professionals” (which includes anyone who cares about audio production even if it’s not their day job). And a colleague who attended a recent developer workshop at Microsoft about Vista audio wasn’t very impressed. That said, it seems reasonable to hope you’ll get at least some of your wishes. My primary concern at this point is that Vista will continue to slip and get cut down. I think the smartest teams at Microsoft right now are making sure their projects also run on XP “just in case,” and audio is not something which lends itself to that kind of bet-hedging.

]]> By: Peter Kirn http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/05/02/how-to-solve-garbled-audio-on-windows-with-simple-settings/#comment-3417 Peter Kirn Wed, 03 May 2006 17:42:58 +0000 http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/05/02/how-to-solve-garbled-audio-on-windows-with-simple-settings/#comment-3417 Yipes, you're right; I'm wrong. I really imagined I had seen the WDM choice in Live. I feel certain I've seen it *somewhere* in non-Cakewalk software, but maybe I'm just imagining things. I've never seen it called DirectKS in an end-user interface. Backwards-compatibility is great, so no fault there, but I'd like to see a standard Windows audio (and MIDI) API that: 1. Allows interconnections between applications 2. Allows multiple applications to easily share audio devices, and use more than one audio device at once 3. Delivers low-latency performance (consistently below 10 ms) 4. Remembers devices, even if they're disconnected, then reconnected to a different USB port (I shouldn't even have to mention this one, but thanks to Windows, I do) 5. Doesn't have a pre-defined limit for the number of device drivers you can install I don't think those are unreasonable expectations of a modern OS. Currently, I don't find even ASIO works consistently in all cases, and it certainly lacks flexibility on some of these points. The state of Windows audio now is very much like the state of Mac audio pre-OS X and Linux audio pre-ALSA. It's funny, though, because you have to explain to anyone who doesn't know the Mac that you just find a device that says it supports the Mac, run a single installer, and (often without restarting), you're done. Class-compliance even works a lot of the time without futzing. This isn't something that happened automatically with Core Audio; it's something that Apple worked on over time. I certainly had issues with 10.0, 10.1, and 10.2. (I don't see any new issues in Intel other than waiting for software support to be finished, and even that's happening really fast. Probably faster than some of us can even save up the $$ for a new Intel machine.) Maybe now we could see improvements from Microsoft? Yipes, you’re right; I’m wrong. I really imagined I had seen the WDM choice in Live. I feel certain I’ve seen it *somewhere* in non-Cakewalk software, but maybe I’m just imagining things. I’ve never seen it called DirectKS in an end-user interface.

Backwards-compatibility is great, so no fault there, but I’d like to see a standard Windows audio (and MIDI) API that:

1. Allows interconnections between applications
2. Allows multiple applications to easily share audio devices, and use more than one audio device at once
3. Delivers low-latency performance (consistently below 10 ms)
4. Remembers devices, even if they’re disconnected, then reconnected to a different USB port (I shouldn’t even have to mention this one, but thanks to Windows, I do)
5. Doesn’t have a pre-defined limit for the number of device drivers you can install

I don’t think those are unreasonable expectations of a modern OS. Currently, I don’t find even ASIO works consistently in all cases, and it certainly lacks flexibility on some of these points. The state of Windows audio now is very much like the state of Mac audio pre-OS X and Linux audio pre-ALSA.

It’s funny, though, because you have to explain to anyone who doesn’t know the Mac that you just find a device that says it supports the Mac, run a single installer, and (often without restarting), you’re done. Class-compliance even works a lot of the time without futzing. This isn’t something that happened automatically with Core Audio; it’s something that Apple worked on over time. I certainly had issues with 10.0, 10.1, and 10.2. (I don’t see any new issues in Intel other than waiting for software support to be finished, and even that’s happening really fast. Probably faster than some of us can even save up the $$ for a new Intel machine.)

Maybe now we could see improvements from Microsoft?

]]> By: kokorozashi http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/05/02/how-to-solve-garbled-audio-on-windows-with-simple-settings/#comment-3416 kokorozashi Wed, 03 May 2006 17:11:48 +0000 http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/05/02/how-to-solve-garbled-audio-on-windows-with-simple-settings/#comment-3416 Also, it occurs to me that the Mac has a user experience advantage by simple virtue of the fact that it has a single audio API and thus there is no need for the user to ever see its name much less choose it. ASIO may be a nice technology, but the fact that it exists in at all should embarrass Microsoft deeply. (I can’t blame Microsoft for having more than one of its own API, because that’s a matter of backward compatibility as far as I can tell.) Also, it occurs to me that the Mac has a user experience advantage by simple virtue of the fact that it has a single audio API and thus there is no need for the user to ever see its name much less choose it. ASIO may be a nice technology, but the fact that it exists in at all should embarrass Microsoft deeply. (I can’t blame Microsoft for having more than one of its own API, because that’s a matter of backward compatibility as far as I can tell.)

]]> By: kokorozashi http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/05/02/how-to-solve-garbled-audio-on-windows-with-simple-settings/#comment-3415 kokorozashi Wed, 03 May 2006 17:02:30 +0000 http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/05/02/how-to-solve-garbled-audio-on-windows-with-simple-settings/#comment-3415 I am generally a Mac bigot, but I have to admit MacIntel will feel like a work in progress to me until Propellerheads ships a native build of Reason. :-) As far as Live goes, I have the demo of 5.2 installed on my Windows machine, and it seems to offer two choices at the API level, one for ASIO and one for (and I frankly don't understand this) both MME and DirectX (which it sometimes calls DX). I don’t see any DirectKS (AKA WDM) option. I am generally a Mac bigot, but I have to admit MacIntel will feel like a work in progress to me until Propellerheads ships a native build of Reason. :-)

As far as Live goes, I have the demo of 5.2 installed on my Windows machine, and it seems to offer two choices at the API level, one for ASIO and one for (and I frankly don’t understand this) both MME and DirectX (which it sometimes calls DX). I don’t see any DirectKS (AKA WDM) option.

]]> By: Peter Kirn http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/05/02/how-to-solve-garbled-audio-on-windows-with-simple-settings/#comment-3388 Peter Kirn Wed, 03 May 2006 00:58:25 +0000 http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/05/02/how-to-solve-garbled-audio-on-windows-with-simple-settings/#comment-3388 Richard, thanks, but I'm afraid I can't agree with you on your take on Mac OS. I may not have made my point clearly, either: I feel like, let's share what fixes annoyances on Windows, because I (and many others) have to use it. Along the way, I'm also more than happy to point out easily-reproduced problems with Windows, because I think those ought to get fixed (and can be fixed) by Microsoft and by better driver support. And it's hard not to make a comparison when, relative to one another, Macs are objectively better at handling audio drivers than Windows PCs. I don't want it to *stay* that way, because I'm using Windows and Mac and Linux alongside one another, and I want all of them to work better! I'm not sure what's causing your spinning beach ball syndrome on the Mac -- I expect you are having a different experience than I am. But my experience has been that on a properly optimized modern Mac you can get excellent performance and reliability out of the box. I have three Macs here in my office at the moment, so I've got a decent lab running. Now, I think Windows, Mac, and Linux are *all* too complicated for their own good a lot of the time, and I've seen all three inexplicably bog down in the way you're describing the Mac . . . I just try to figure out how to fix all of them when that happens. And the "Mac platform" is not "obsolete" just because Apple is switching CPU vendors. Nothing could be further from the truth. Core Audio runs just fine on an Intel Mac, and Mac OS X is effectively unchanged. NeXT, of course, was running its OS on Intel back when Democrats controlled the US Congress. (In what feels the 16th Century, in other words.) In fact, I've tested MOTU, M-Audio, and Edirol drivers on the Core Duo I have here, running Ableton Live and Apple Logic Pro. It's *exactly* the same experience you get on a PowerPC. Same OS, same audio infrastructure, and the same user experience. Windows, by contrast, is absolutely a work in progress as far as Vista. Frankly, I HOPE it's a work in progress! I hope I'm not dealing with all the same problems when Vista ships in 2007. I think audio users have every right to be angry if Microsoft left that behind, given that they're running nonstop "make music with Windows" ads. I'm willing to get a few drivers turned upside down if it means Windows finally works the way it should. XP was a HUGE leap forward from past operating systems, even though I'm complaining here, but that illustrates the point -- XP changed a lot in a way that benefitted pro audio people, and I hope future versions of Windows will, too. I'm not terribly confident at the moment. Richard, thanks, but I’m afraid I can’t agree with you on your take on Mac OS. I may not have made my point clearly, either: I feel like, let’s share what fixes annoyances on Windows, because I (and many others) have to use it. Along the way, I’m also more than happy to point out easily-reproduced problems with Windows, because I think those ought to get fixed (and can be fixed) by Microsoft and by better driver support. And it’s hard not to make a comparison when, relative to one another, Macs are objectively better at handling audio drivers than Windows PCs. I don’t want it to *stay* that way, because I’m using Windows and Mac and Linux alongside one another, and I want all of them to work better!

I’m not sure what’s causing your spinning beach ball syndrome on the Mac — I expect you are having a different experience than I am. But my experience has been that on a properly optimized modern Mac you can get excellent performance and reliability out of the box. I have three Macs here in my office at the moment, so I’ve got a decent lab running. Now, I think Windows, Mac, and Linux are *all* too complicated for their own good a lot of the time, and I’ve seen all three inexplicably bog down in the way you’re describing the Mac . . . I just try to figure out how to fix all of them when that happens.

And the “Mac platform” is not “obsolete” just because Apple is switching CPU vendors. Nothing could be further from the truth. Core Audio runs just fine on an Intel Mac, and Mac OS X is effectively unchanged. NeXT, of course, was running its OS on Intel back when Democrats controlled the US Congress. (In what feels the 16th Century, in other words.)

In fact, I’ve tested MOTU, M-Audio, and Edirol drivers on the Core Duo I have here, running Ableton Live and Apple Logic Pro. It’s *exactly* the same experience you get on a PowerPC. Same OS, same audio infrastructure, and the same user experience.

Windows, by contrast, is absolutely a work in progress as far as Vista. Frankly, I HOPE it’s a work in progress! I hope I’m not dealing with all the same problems when Vista ships in 2007. I think audio users have every right to be angry if Microsoft left that behind, given that they’re running nonstop “make music with Windows” ads. I’m willing to get a few drivers turned upside down if it means Windows finally works the way it should. XP was a HUGE leap forward from past operating systems, even though I’m complaining here, but that illustrates the point — XP changed a lot in a way that benefitted pro audio people, and I hope future versions of Windows will, too. I’m not terribly confident at the moment.

]]> By: Peter Kirn http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/05/02/how-to-solve-garbled-audio-on-windows-with-simple-settings/#comment-3386 Peter Kirn Wed, 03 May 2006 00:42:53 +0000 http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/05/02/how-to-solve-garbled-audio-on-windows-with-simple-settings/#comment-3386 Kokorazashi, thanks -- WDM is actually supported in other software, including Ableton Live, so I should have mentioned it. So often you wind up using ASIO instead because it's a common denominator, but yes, WDM is supported in Cakewalk and Ableton products which is quite significant, and it often performs on par with ASIO . . . whatever its equivalent in Vista should be even more so. Mzimu: thanks for the reminder on ASIO4ALL! Kokorazashi, thanks — WDM is actually supported in other software, including Ableton Live, so I should have mentioned it. So often you wind up using ASIO instead because it’s a common denominator, but yes, WDM is supported in Cakewalk and Ableton products which is quite significant, and it often performs on par with ASIO . . . whatever its equivalent in Vista should be even more so.

Mzimu: thanks for the reminder on ASIO4ALL!

]]> By: Richard Lawler http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/05/02/how-to-solve-garbled-audio-on-windows-with-simple-settings/#comment-3384 Richard Lawler Wed, 03 May 2006 00:32:17 +0000 http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/05/02/how-to-solve-garbled-audio-on-windows-with-simple-settings/#comment-3384 Why is it always a comparison with how well the Mac supposedly works? Obviously your experiences differ from mine. (Can you say "spinning beach ball"?) But it's irrelavant. Are people who aren't even going to bother to get an audio interface with an ASIO driver going to switch platforms? I must also respectfully point out that this Mac platform with which you claim to have never had any problems is obsolete. At this point the Intel-Mac platform is a work in progress. Please report back in a year when the drivers, plug-ins, applications and support utilities are ready. Why is it always a comparison with how well the Mac supposedly works? Obviously your experiences differ from mine. (Can you say “spinning beach ball”?) But it’s irrelavant. Are people who aren’t even going to bother to get an audio interface with an ASIO driver going to switch platforms?

I must also respectfully point out that this Mac platform with which you claim to have never had any problems is obsolete. At this point the Intel-Mac platform is a work in progress. Please report back in a year when the drivers, plug-ins, applications and support utilities are ready.

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