Problems with Asio4All..more of my ignorant nonsense

[BobCarter]

After buying my keyboard (Axiom 25), I have been trying to fine-tune the buffer latency. My sound could run at a low buffer rate yet yesterday I googled to try to find ways to improve the buffer issues even further, and ended up downloading ASIO4ALL..only problem now is that every other program on my computer plays audible sound except for FL Studio 8 which now is silent. Although the waveforms are showing up and visually look responsive, I still hear nothing. To save a few questions I'm going to post what I've already done to try and fix this problem..honestly it could just be that my sound card is somehow non-compatible with ASIO4ALL (Even though it's supposed to be "4ALL"...) Being the newbie that I am, I could be over-thinking this as it could just be a minor issue I'm not aware of..any comments or instruction would be greatly appreciated. My apologies if this post is a little excessive..I'm just trying to cover as much as possible so ya'll don't have to waste time asking me more questions than necessary..

What I've done so far:

1) Downloaded the English version ASIO4ALL driver from their homepage. (v2.9)

2) Installed the program

3) Read the .pdf instruction manual, and did the following:
- Set my laptop's power scheme to High Performance
- Turned off all my system sounds

At this point everything still was working to my knowledge.

4) Opened FL Studio 8

5) Went to Options > Settings > and toggled the Input/Output to ASIO4ALL v2
A side question: There's an option under the Input/Output menu called "M-Audio USB Asio." I'm not sure if this is another alternative to using ASIO4ALL, or even if it's what I'm supposed to use, but an error saying, "Not enough ASIO4ALL channels are available. At least 2 channels are needed." I'm guessing this is probably something hardware related that I'm also ignorant about

6) Selected the ASIO4ALL v2 option

7) Clicked on the "Show ASIO panel" button.

8) "SigmaTel High Definition Audio CODEC," is lit up/on. I haven't messed with the Buffer Size (It's at 512 Samples)

9) I clicked on the little wrench icon for Advanced Options.

10) I checked the box, "Always Resample 44.1kHz <-> 48kHz" and the "Force WDM Driver to 16 Bit," which I instructed to do since I have Vista (I could have been ill-informed)

11) I closed the ASIO4ALL window and dragged a sample from the Browser and dropped it into my step sequencer to test my change in latency.

12) No sound. I am running at 512 Samples @ 48000 Hz

13) Even though I already have practically typed a essay worth of writing in this post..I have included a screen shot of what everything looks like so far in case I have caused confusion:

http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff73/carterw_bucket/asioprob.jpg

14) I notice that there are "X" marks next to the "Speaker/HP" button and an X mark next to the "Out: 2x 44.1-192kHz, 24 Bits" button... and when I highlight the "Speaker/HP" button, I get a little sticky note-ish window that pops up saying, "In use by another application? 'MS GS Wavetable Synth' enabled?

I don't know...I googled this and browsed around for about fifteen minutes and saw that a lot of other people have this problem so hopefully this post can serve some sort of educational purpose for others that may be having the same problem but haven't asked it yet.

Any answers or troubleshooting tips would help. Thanks guys

- Bob

 

[BobCarter]

Wow. I feel like a complete idiot now because I started switching up the combinations of Inputs and Outputs and now the sound mysteriously started working....I just hope this isn't a fluke. But until further notice, don't waste your time posting on this thread. Thanks anyway!

And wow...I can't wait to get home today and start make-believing my Axiom drum pad is an mpc This issue was the only thing holding me back from manually recording with my hardware instead of having to click into the damn step sequencer and wasting time tweaking the piano roll. for a newbie like me this is a huge breakthrough I thought initially the reason that my buffering was messed up was because of my stock sound card. My last computer's card might have well been a graham cracker...sounded like I was playing atari or something..my bad though im rambling over and out
- Bob

 

[Fade]

Ya it could be a simple mistake because I've used ASIO4ALL and never had a problem, if anything it always made things better, not worse.

 

[7thangel]

did you update the drivers and such at m-audio? m-audio has rock solid asio. also, what is your soundcard? personally, unless you're doing film/post audio production i wouldn't bother with 48 khz.

besides doing yourself a favour and not use vista or find some definitive vista daw guides/troubleshooting spot, find out how to optimize your 'puter, especially for music and X 3 for vista here's a thread with a bunch of links http://www.gearslutz.com/board/musi...te-optimizing-computer-performance-audio.html (this can help both pc and mac users)

 

[The Arkitekt]

Your soundcard might have a setting called "Give exclusive use to programs" or some shit like that.

 

[BobCarter]

Thanks for the link 7th angel...I'm checking it out right now..and I think figured out what the actual problem was with my ASIO...I had iTunes open and I was listening to some music. I opened FL Studio 8 immediately after I closed iTunes and I didn't wait long enough before doing so.

In response to your questions, 7thangel...

I'm not too familiar with M-audio and computer-related music hardware in general, as I've only had my Axiom 25 for about four days...but when I bought my keyboard, the installation CD said that my computer's OS wasn't compatible with the driver. I ended up having to go to their website to download the most recent drivers that were Vista-friendly. So yes, I do have the most up-to-date driver for the keyboard itself, yet at the same time, when I try to change my Input and Output source from ASIO4ALL v2.9 (which works now), to the M-Audio USB ASIO that appeared when I installed my keyboard driver, I get the same error message each time, saying that I need at least 2 ASIO output channels in order to use it.. I really don't know how all of this works or what it means, but if what you're saying is that the M-Audio ASIO is superior to the ASIO4ALL, let me know if you know what's wrong with my setup and how I can began to use the M-Audio one.
Thanks bro.

-Bob

 

[2GooD Productions]

I get a feeling the M-Audio ASIO driver is purely to control the Axiom 25.
I dont think its specifically an audio driver, but a keyboard driver.
I think for all other audio programs you should use the ASIO4ALL driver if it works.
It could come down to an incompatible soundcard, Im not too sure tho.

 

[BobCarter]

It's all good now man..I figured everything out so far but thanks for the feedback