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It could be that you have ASIO outputs turned off, or there is a conflict. Try the following: 1. Select ASIO4ALL in the input/output section (just recapping) 4. Select SHOW ASIO PANEL. Select ADVANCED OPTIONS (wrench image) to expand the list of ALL inputs and outputs. Check for any that show in RED or ORANGE. Now that we’ve explained the various audio systems, lets troubleshoot some common audio issues when working with DAWs. ASIO Mode: Input detected over USB, can’t select Windows audio (e.g. Realtek) as output. This is by design. When ASIO is chosen as the audio system, the ASIO-enabled device becomes the input/output source.

ASIO (Audio Streaming Input Output) is a technology of Steinberg. It allows for low latencies and pretty much every state-of-the-art audio device is nowadays delivered with an ASIO driver (on Windows, at least). However, the basic idea behind ASIO is that professional audio applications entirely take ownership of the ASIO device. On Windows, the best performing driver type is ASIO. Most audio interfaces generally come with a custom ASIO driver. Install the driver and then choose it from Live's preferences on the Audio tab: Additionally, the third party driver, ASIO4ALL is available to download for free. It can be useful to those who may experience driver issues and have.

So you’ve just set up your home studio, bought a Notebook and it’s time to run the first few tests. You’ve installed Pro Tools, tried to open it and it didn’t work – it said you need an ASIO driver. So you decide to read about it and find out ASIO only runs on external audio cards. Is there any other solution? Yes! What is Asio4all? It’s a software that emulates ASIO, making it possible to use DAWs without an external component and improving latency problems. This Windows-compatible software saves the lives of many sound engineers and independent producers at the beginning of their careers (and it allows you to open Pro Tools). The best news is that you can download it for free.

All in all, what is Asio4all and what does it do?

Asio4all
  • Reduces latency in the recording;
  • Compatible with practically every DAW;
  • Runs on almost every version of Windows;
  • Works with low buffer sizes;
  • Doesn’t require an external interface;
  • Doesn’t interfere with the emitted signal a lot;
  • Free and easy to download.

So, if your interface doesn’t have the ASIO built in it, Asio4all can help you a lot. If you don’t know what an audio interface is for is for, read more it in our other article. When talking about Asio4all, we also need to talk about the reason for its existence, ASIO itself.

DAWs such as Nuendo don’t run only native drivers.

Native ASIO

Ableton

After you get a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), you also need an audio driver in order to get started on your audio productions. Yes, you do have an audio driver – after all, your computer has an onboard sound card. That much is true, but DAWs don’t run on onboard cards. None of them. Not Cubase, Nuendo, Ableton Live, Logic Pro, Fruit Loops, none. Protools won’t even launch.

Native drivers, such as MME (Multimedia Extensions), Direct X and WASAPI weren’t built for audio production. So, every DAW requires the professional music production driver for Windows, ASIO. It doesn’t come with Windows, it comes with the external audio interface. You can’t download it from the internet.

ASIO – Audio Stream Input Output – is a protocol that records and simultaneously plays many audio sources without hindering quality or getting out of sync. Steinberg, the same German company that brought Nuendo and Cubase to the world and created VST plugins, developed it. It allows for faithful communication between the DAW and the audio interface, with no signal interference. With ASIO, you can run multiple plugins at the same time. This happens because the driver builds a path linking the DAW and the interface (your onboard sound card), without passing through the sound hardware on Windows on its way, helping the signal play with much less latency, a great problem in digital recordings.

Latency

It refers to the time it takes for a digital system and an audio signal to communicate. In other words, it represents how long it takes for the recorded signal to play. The time it takes for the computer sound card to process information is known as buffer size. An increased buffer size makes it easier for the computer to process it, but it also makes the latency higher. If the buffer size is reduced too much, the latency may even disappear, but processing it overworks the computer, creating bugs, pops, clicks, snaps or even causing the software to crash.

How do you monitor latency?

When you raise the track meter on the virtual fader of the DAW and the audio has its volume raised only a few seconds later. It’s obvious things are happening slowly inside the machine.

Another example: when you play an instrument, even if it’s virtual and the sound plays with a certain degree of delay on the speakers. You usually want to listen to what you’re recording live. If there is a delay when listening to what you just played, that is latency. Let’s agree: that makes working impossible.

Why does this happen?

In normal computers, the onboard sound card and its respective drivers weren’t built for sound production. The main job of Windows hardware was to enable the operation of multiple applications simultaneously. Thus, Windows audio devices originally struggled to process sound in real time.

An operational system has layers of drivers carrying out the process: they receive the signal, digitalize it, apply all the effects and send it out. This takes time. If you’re using several plugins, then it takes even longer. The problem is more evident when the sound comes from a sound source played live. Take a keyboard, for example, you play a note and it takes about one second for it to be heard. In this case, latency is high.

Latencies under 7 milliseconds can be considered “real time”. Up to 15ms of recording can happen without major issues. Anything above that and the person recording starts facing difficulties.

Asio4all

In 2003, Michael Tippach, a German programmer, decided to help those who didn’t have native ASIO. He launched Asio4all, a software that emulates an ASIO environment so the DAWs work. Like ASIO, Asio4all doesn’t depend on hardwares – the great secret to solving latency problems.

Asio4All – what do you need to install it?

Created in a combined 32/64 bits version, Asio4all supports Win 98SE/ME/2k/XP/MCE/2003 / XP64 and Vista / Windows 7 x86/x64/Windows 8.x x86/x64. If you have any of these models, you can download the software.

Asio4all works with the WDM – Windows Driver Model driver pattern. This device exists in almost every model of Windows, except for Windows95 and Win98 Gold. It also works with WDM Kernel-Streaming and sometimes even other driver models.

Asio4all requires exclusive access to the audio driver. In many cases, when you turn on the computer, the device is automatically activated, which may prevent Asio4all from successfully booting. The software even replaces some functions of the driver, like volume, buffering time, and others. It presents new features the native audio doesn’t have and needs adjustments so you can make the best use of it.

The Asio4all website advises against modifying or replacing your computer native drivers or trying to add components from other audio devices to Asio4all.

Can I use any DAW with Asio4all?

This software is known for its abundance of DAWs (Ableton even recommends Asio4all for those who don’t have native ASIO). To set it up, you need to access your DAW Preferences and choose Asio4all as the driver.

All in all, you just need to install and open the DAW and everything will be fine. If you have some type of problem, it’s important to configure the Asio4all and DAW functions very carefully according to your taste so the quality of the sound produced is maintained. Slowness may happen if you use many plugins at the same time and your computer doesn’t have a lot of RAM memory and the hard drive doesn’t have a lot of space. Increasing the sample rate to export a track also demands a lot from the processor, which may cause problems. On the other hand, a low sample rate may cause decreased sound quality. The punchline: computers in home studios need to be high-performance.

Macs não precisam de Asio4all. Os Core Audio, drives de áudio nativos dos computadores Apple, apresentam ótima resposta. Claro, nem tanto quanto o ASIO dedicado de uma interface externa. Mas o suficiente para quebrar um galho em uma sessão com poucos plugins. (DAWs não se recusam a abrir com o Core Audio dos Macs!)

Macs don’t need Asio4all. The Core Audios, native audio drivers in Apple computers, have a great response. Of course, it isn’t as good as a dedicated ASIO of an external interface. But it’s enough to help during a session with few plugins. (DAWs aren’t shy about launching with Core Audio in Mac computers!).

Asio4all: besides downloading it, what do you need to play without an interface?

Don’t overdo it! Audio interfaces come with a bunch of different resources for high-performance productions. Using Asio4all, you’ll still be using a single channel to record, since the computer has one single input. That’s the P2 connector, which isn’t ideal when talking about signal quality. Recording straight from the microphone in your computer creates very low-quality sound. Interfaces can also work as preamps, besides having better D/A and A/D converters. They can come with several jacks and accept P10 and XLR connectors, recommended for better signal transmission. Besides, without studio monitor outputs, you’ll be fated to produce using headphones.

Asio4all can help you during an important phase when starting out with your home studio, helping you to develop your skills as a producer. Download the driver and jump in head – and ears – first!
http://www.asio4all.org

This post deals with a slightly confusing topic for some of us working on music or audio on a computer…

The topic of “drivers”.

Asio4all No Sound Ableton

Computers are great, but they’re only good them when they work, and especially when they’re doing what they’re supposed to do.

Asio4all Headphones No Sound

But when it comes to a tech issue, it becomes immediately frustrating, so much so you might want to hulk-smash and throw your PC out the window…

Hopefully, that will never happened. But if you spend some time setting your studio with your music production laptop or computer, to get everything to work together, you’re going to need to get the best audio drivers for music production.

See other topics:

What is an Audio Driver?

It’s that mysterious software component that does something that you’re not sure of but is essential somehow.

Well, essentially all a driver does is to make a piece of hardware on your computer communicate with the software on your computer. That’s it.

An audio driver’s purpose, then, is to ensure that whatever audio device you’re using, whether it’s your computer’s local audio device, or, more preferably, an audio interface you connect to it, is communicating with your software program, such as a digital audio workstation, or audio plugins.

As far as how this relates to music production or the home recording studio, we’ll shed a little light on the topic. But at it’s basic, you already told you what it is, now you need to know what’s the best driver solution for your setup, and where to get it.

This post is primarily directed at Windows users on either PC or laptop who are either music producers, composers, DJs, instrumentalists or vocalists. So if you’re any of the above, keep on reading.

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Some Basic Knowledge

There are many very good Windows-based laptops that you can use to work on music. However, as you begin to progress you will notice something called, “latency”.

What is latency?

Well, according to Wikipedia, latency is:

“a short period of delay between when an audio signal enters and when it emerges from a system.”

You begin to notice it when you play a VST instrument using your MIDI controller, or record an instrument like a bass, or vocals. There is a little bit of a time discrepancy between what you hear and what the system produces through the speakers or headphones. Because of this, the person playing their instrument may make adjustments in their performances to compensate. An effect which can have unpleasant results.

The reason why this happens is that the signal needs to be received, converted and processed, then outputted by the computer before you can hear it. If you’re monitoring and recording/composing real-time, this can be an unpleasant experience if there is too much of a lag. In consumer computers, such as a typical Microsoft Windows PC, the audio drivers can cause latency of up to 500ms, which is quite detectable by the human ear. To offshoot this problem, the standard solution is to get an interface optimized to reduce the delay down to an undetectable value.

In consumer computers, such as a typical Microsoft Windows PC, the audio drivers can cause latency of up to 500 ms, which is quite detectable by the human ear. To offshoot this problem, the standard solution is to get an interface optimized to reduce the delay down to an undetectable value.

Solution…

A popular solution to this problem is the ASIO. Short for Audio Stream Input/Output, and specified by Steinberg, (makers of the legendary DAW Cubase), ASIO bypasses the layers required to process audio signal in the PC system, connecting your music production software directly to the system’s sound card.

Hence, many modern music making and editing applications utilize the ASIO specification so that working with music in real time is achievable.

That means, in order for you to enjoy the best music making experience on your Windows PC, you’ll need to get an audio driver for music production.

What Audio Driver to Get

ASIO4ALL

Before 2003, you’d probably have to go to a store and purchase a sound card with a supported ASIO. But now there is something that can universally connect your PC’s audio device directly to your music production software for seamless music-making fun.

And it’s free: ASIO4ALL.

ASIO4ALL is a universal audio driver for Windows systems. Since consumer PCs generally don’t come with a native ASIO device driver, ASIO4ALL was created so that the Windows audio driver and Windows USB can appear as ASIO to your digital audio workstation, giving it dedicated priority so that, as mentioned above, it bypasses the layers of audio processing within your system.

It’s easy to install, and you can just forget about it afterwards (you can remember to update it every once in a while when new versions come out).

There is one caveat to ASIO4ALL, and that’s if you’re using an audio interface.

Audio Interfaces

Besides ASIO4ALL, there are the drivers specific to your USB audio interfaces. It’s not recommended to use ASIO4ALL with your USB audio interface, although it is possible. But doing that may cause performance issues.

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What is a USB Audio Interface?

For the uninitiated, a USB audio interface gives you professional grade audio quality for your output signal. It also creates a direct line to your digital audio workstation for recording your instruments or vocals.

Audio interfaces range from under $100 to into the thousands, so depends on what you’re looking for. Primarily, your choice of audio interface will be based upon factors like: how many connections do you need for all you microphones and instruments and monitoring gear; if you require outbound DSP processing; do you want something that’s rackmountable, portable, or that sits on your desktop. We can look more deeply in the audio interface in the audio interface guide.

That being said, the audio interface you purchase will like have the best audio driver you need, which either will come with the package to install on your computer, or you will be given a link to download it from the manufacturer’s website.

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Do you need an audio interface?

There are many who start out not even using an USB audio interface, primarily if they decide to use a USB microphone, or plan on just composing music within the DAW using plugins, and monitoring via the headphone jack.

Even though this process is not ideal, you can call it the “poor man’s” home studio, in which his home studio actually consists of a laptop and a pair of headphones. That said, when it come to getting good mixes, you’ll need an audio interface, even the most portable kind, which will have the right driver for your computer to work with your DAW and audio software devices.

Asio4all No Output

However, if you do choose to go the “poor man’s home studio” route, download and install ASIO4ALL.

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Hopefully, this helps to clear up any confusions on audio drivers, what they are, and what to get.

Take a look at the home recording studio guide to find the all the best gear you’ll need to build your best home studio!